


A match made in cooking class

by SuperEllen



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi is so done with Bokuto, Bokuto Koutarou Being Bokuto Koutarou, Bokuto has a girlfriend at some point, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Denial of Feelings, Denial of Sexual Orientation, F/M, Feelings Realization, M/M, Matchmaking, Misunderstandings, Realization of sexual orientation, Super-secret cooking classes, Training Camp, blind dates, but it doesn't last for long anyway, meddling grandmothers, minor manga spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 67,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25822924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperEllen/pseuds/SuperEllen
Summary: Later that evening, when Akaashi is gone and the family is sitting together at the dinner table, his mother tells him that she can teach him how to cook. They have their first lesson the following day, when his mother walks him through the process of boiling some rice. It ends up with his father calling the fire department, and his mother stating that he's never going to get any closer than five feet from her stove ever again. That's how she decides to sign him up for cooking lessons. He complains about it, but she says that attendance until he finishes high school is mandatory if he wants to prove that he'll be able to survive on his own. It’s either that, or being the pro volleyball player who starves to death.Or: the one in which Bokuto is forced by his mother to join a cooking class, and a very nice old lady in cooking school tries to set him up with her grandson.
Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou, Bokuto Koutarou/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 153
Kudos: 193





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is the first time I start posting a long fic after I finished writing it, so I can say for sure that updates will be regular, since the chapters are already written and partially revised.  
> I'll do my best to post twice a week, every Monday and Thursday. I chose these days in particular because they have a specific relevance to the story, so it only seemed fit.
> 
> Before we begin, I would also like to specify that in this story I gave a name and a life to a canon character that was only mentioned once in the manga and never even seen in person.
> 
> English is not my first language, so there is always a limit to the amount of editing I can do on my own. If you see any mistakes, please let me know and I'll amend them immediately.
> 
> Warning regarding the manga spoilers: it's only a minor spoiler, but I'll mention Fukurodani's final placement at Nationals later on in the story.

When Bokuto Koutarou announces to his mother that after high school he wants to leave home to live his dream of becoming a professional volleyball player, he’s in the middle of his second year of high school, and she doesn’t try to stop him. She is actually very supportive of his idea, and she really appreciates his determination on the matter. At the same time, however, she laughs at the thought of her spoiled child surviving on his own. He has never lifted a finger inside the house, his mother always does everything for him. When he gets back home after volleyball practice, he throws his gym bag full of stinky volleyball gear somewhere in the living room, and the following day he finds it clean on the desk in his bedroom. Same goes for the rest of his clothes and his school uniform: he drops stuff on the floor of his bedroom, and at some point it magically disappears, reappearing a day later perfectly folded and most of all clean. He’s not even sure if they have a dryer in the house or if his mother just snaps her fingers and laundry gets dried and ironed on its own. He has a vague idea of where the washing machine might be inside the house, but he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to understand how to operate it. That’s why, when his mother asks how he thinks he’s going to wash his clothes when living on his own, he proudly announces that that’s exactly what dry-cleaners are for. She rolls her eyes and leaves, but he can hear her giggle while tidying up the living room.

The following day, she tells him that if he wants to live on his own he needs to learn how to do laundry. She explains to him that, before he becomes a famous player, he won’t have enough money to dry-clean all of his clothes every day, so he needs to learn how to wash them on his own. The first time he tries he puts too much detergent in the washing machine, ending in a small accident with lather invading the entire bathroom and part of his parents’ bedroom. After a few tries, however, he manages to learn. That, however, doesn’t mean that he starts doing his own laundry around the house; it just means that now he knows what happens to his dirty clothes after he leaves them on the floor.

When he brings up the subject again, right after competing at nationals for the second year in a row, he’s sitting at the dinner table with both of his parents. His father says that he’s proud of his son for being so good at a sport that he wants to make a career out of it. Then, two mouthfuls of rice with vegetables later, his father starts asking him weird questions. Such as how he thinks he’ll be keeping his apartment clean once he moves out of their house. “What do you mean by that?” he asks, utterly confused. “If you want to live in an environment that isn’t a health hazard, you have to clean it regularly” his father explains, while his mother keeps eating in silence. And _this_ he doesn’t understand. He’s never cleaned his bedroom, still it’s always clean. So why would things be any different with a small apartment? When he makes such a comment out loud, his father facepalms himself so hard that he can actually hear the smack. He doesn’t understand that’s wrong with the man. Is it something he said? “Kou-chan, your bedroom is clean because I clean it every day while you’re at school” his mother points out, and that’s when he opens his eyes wide and looks at her. “You do _what_?” he asks for confirmation, because he’s not sure he understands. It never occurred to him before. He just thought that things got done on their own, and that’s it. He never imagined his mother being the one actually doing them. Just like it was with laundry. But now that he knows how laundry works, he slams his foot down at cleaning. He’s never going to learn _that_! “I can hire a maid?” he suggests, unsure. “Until you become an affirmed pro player, you won’t have the money for a maid. You either do it yourself or live in filth. Which one do you prefer?” his father points out. He’s about to reply that filth isn’t that bad after all, when his mother pitches in. “It’s easily solved: you’ll learn how to clean a house, starting with your own room.”

The following weekend, when he comes home from practice, they clean his bedroom together. He accidentally rips a set of sheets while trying to make his bed (“Really? All of this effort to make the bed when I’m going to undo it tonight anyway? And those were my favorite sheets too!” He’s the kind of person who can’t stay still even while he sleeps, so he makes a mess with the covers every night; his mother knows it, but she forces him to make the bed until he learns how to do it anyway) but the overall result isn’t that bad after all. From that moment on, he has to clean his own room once a week. The day he does it is the worse day of the week for him, but after a month he notices that his mother seems a lot more relaxed. He’s glad to see her happier, but not enough to volunteer to take out the trash or anything like that.

When he announces that he wants to become a pro player once again, it’s the first week of his last year of high school. Akaashi is over to help him study, even though the setter is one year his junior, and his mother is putting together a quick snack for them in the kitchen. This time, Akaashi is the one who brings forward another problem he’s never even thought of before. “Your mother is great at cooking, Bokuto-san. I’m sure you’re going to miss this food when you’re on your own” Akaashi says in reply to his captain’s declaration, happily tasting some wonderful home-made mochi and enjoying every morsel. “Oh Keiji-kun, you’re always so appreciative and polite” the woman compliments the boy for saying nice things about her cooking, while in the meantime her son is contemplating the meaning of the entire conversation. He is sporting the same concentrated expression he has when the opponents have three blockers and he needs to avoid them in order to spike. “Well, that’s what restaurants are for, aren’t they?” he finally says, making Akaashi sigh. His mother is the one to answer. “You won’t be able to afford restaurant food every day, especially considering how much you eat” his mother states, and that’s when he starts to panic. “What? I’ll starve!” he yells. Then he grabs Akaashi by the shoulders and starts shaking him, hoping that his setter would find a solution to his problem. He can live with dirty clothes, he can live in a filthy house, but how can he survive without food? “You can cook, right? You can come with me and cook!” he tells his friend. Without abandoning his usual composure, Akaashi frees himself from that grip. “When you leave, I’ll still be in high school. I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to come with you and feed you” the boy tells him. “’Kaaaaashiiiiii” he whines, but there’s no convincing his best friend to drop out of high school only to cook for him for free. So unfair! When Akaashi states that they either start working on his math homework or he leaves, Bokuto finally follows the setter to the living room, leaving his mother in the kitchen laughing with affection at her son’s expenses.

Later that evening, when Akaashi is gone and the family is sitting together at the dinner table, his mother tells him that she can teach him how to cook. She also says that she’s sure he’ll love it, once he’s become good at it. He doubts it, but he decides to give his mother the benefit of the doubt. They have their first lesson the following day, when his mother walks him through the process of boiling some rice. It ends up with his father calling the fire department, and his mother stating that he’s never going to get any closer than five feet from her stove ever again. That’s how she decides to sign him up for cooking lessons. He complains about it, but she says that attendance until he finishes high school is mandatory if he wants to prove that he’ll be able to survive on his own. It’s either that, or being the pro volleyball player who starves to death. From now until graduation, he will have to attend cooking classes every week. He asks his mother to at least send him far enough from his own school that he won’t risk running into anyone he knows, because Fukurodani’s ace can’t be seen attending a cooking class. That stuff is for girls, after all! She accepts the deal, and she ends up signing him up to a beginners class that takes place every Monday and Thursday at 6:00 pm, almost entirely on the other side of town.

***

The first thing Bokuto learns on his first day of cooking classes is that the people there all call each other by their first names, so he’ll have to get used to hearing a bunch of perfect strangers calling him Koutarou. When he gets there and introduces himself to the class, they all greet him with smiles, including the teacher. The teacher is a woman in her forties by the name of Fujiko-sensei, who works at a restaurant nearby and teaches the beginner and advanced classes on her evenings off from the restaurant. Classes have started a couple of weeks ago, he learns immediately, so the others have had a little time to get to know each other. He is a very outgoing person though, so by the time he finishes introducing himself he’s already joking with the guy at the working station right beside his. The class is also full of people of every kind. A few bachelors in their early thirties, a divorcé in his fifties who has to learn how to do things himself, a girl in her twenties who just got engaged and doesn’t know how to tell her future mother-in-law that she can’t cook to save her life, and so on. Everyone in his class is way older than him, with the exception of one girl who looks like she’s around his age.

The second thing he learns is that there’s a reason if everyone wears an apron while cooking. He learns it the bad way, staining the front of his hoodie with soy sauce ten minutes after the beginning of class. After the incident, he asks Fujiko-sensei where to find an apron, and she lends him one, with the promise that he’ll have his own next time. He feels a little better when Hiro-san, the man next to him, tells him that the same exact thing happened to him as well on his first day. Five minutes later they get told off by the teacher for laughing too loud about it and disturbing the rest of the class.

The third thing he learns, right in the middle of his first class, is that nosy old women don’t have much to do during their days, and that’s why they put their noses where they don’t belong. The four who crash the class without being part of it arrive right after Hiro-san prevented Bokuto from setting himself on fire. The boy is still trying to catch his breath, Fujiko-sensei eyeing him with suspicion, when he sees these women in their seventies enter the room, smiling and greeting everyone. He soon learns that they’re in the advanced class that takes place right after theirs, but they always arrive early to help Fujiko-sensei with her beginner students. They always assess the situation, see who’s struggling the most with the recipe they’re cooking, and sit by those people. Bokuto is doing so badly that three out of four decide to sit beside him and help him, while the fourth one goes to the bride-to-be who apparently reminds her so much of her youngest daughter a few years back. With three very expert tutors, Bokuto manages not to kill anyone by the time the first class is over, even though his food still sucks.

During the time he spends with the three old ladies, they shower him with questions, all of them curious as of why a boy like him wants to learn how to cook. When he explains the situation, one of the ladies tells him that she has a grandson around his age who is very much into volleyball himself, but he doesn’t strike her for the type who would like to make a career out of it. That piece of information wins Bokuto’s attention, but before he can ask more on that matter, another one of the ladies informs him that his carrots are burning, so he drops the subject to go back to his pans. When he’s done, his carrots are completely ruined and he has already forgotten what they were talking about.

Overall, the first class is a disaster, but it sure could have been worse. He’s incredibly grateful to the old ladies for saving him. He’s also happy to be the center of their attention, even if he acts as though their questions about his life are bothering him. Two hours after the beginning of class, he says goodbye to everyone and walks to the closest subway station to catch the subway home, sporting a huge soy sauce stain on his hoodie. On Thursday he brings an apron; in his opinion it’s very elegant, all black with little owls in chef hats on it. When he tells Akaashi, the only person who knows he’s taking cooking lessons, about his new apron, the setter doesn’t even want to know where he found it.

***

Two months into his cooking class, Bokuto only has two of the old ladies sitting with him to help him not to hurt himself or others with knives and fire; he considers it a _huge_ progress. His ability to put ingredients together in order to form food, however, is not progressing much, because most of his dishes are still disgusting. He’ll never give his mother the satisfaction of telling her, but he actually enjoys the cooking classes now. Not because of the cooking itself, since he sucks at it after all, but he really likes the environment. Fujiko-sensei is nice enough, and she doesn’t scold him as much as his teachers at school when he does something stupid that makes the class laugh. The other students are friendly and some of them are also pretty funny. In particular he appreciates Hiro-san, a man in his late thirties who ends up laughing with him even when his jokes are more pathetic than funny. He also appreciates the old ladies, who keep showing how much they like him too by pinching his cheeks, calling him Koutarou-chan and repeating how cute he is. Even though he’s not a fan of having his cheeks constantly pinched, he still ravels in the attention he receives from the old women. Also, at this point he calls all of them _grandma_ , as per their request.

Kumiko-chan is another reason why he likes the cooking classes. She is the only other person around his age in his class, and even though she never initiates conversations with him, he often spots her looking in his direction, even when nothing on his station is on fire, only to divert her gaze as soon as he notices. Having her attentions is firing him up, to the point that sometimes he gets distracted. Once he even sends a knife flying, but luckily Hiro-san has good reflexes and catches it before anybody gets hurt. That accident marks the moment the four old ladies start agreeing on something: he has to make a move on Kumiko-chan before he becomes a danger inside the kitchen.

He’s not even sure he actually likes Kumiko-chan. She’s pretty and she seems to be into him, so he convinces himself that he really wants her to be his girlfriend. When he finally asks her out, one Thursday at the end of class, she blushes and drops the empty pan she’s holding on his right foot, but she mumbles a yes. They plan their date for Sunday afternoon, because he has volleyball practice all day on Saturday and he needs to clean his room on Sunday morning. They agree not to tell the old ladies until _after_ the date, otherwise they both know that they’ll never hear the end of it. Bokuto tells Akaashi though, on Friday morning at school in between classes.

“Are you sure that this girl isn’t imaginary, Bokuto-san?” Akaashi asks, mocking him. Bokuto pouts, but Akaashi smiles, showing him that he’s just kidding, and that he is indeed happy for his captain and friend.

“She’s nice, you know? I look forward to this date” Bokuto states. He’s smiling, he appears to be happy about his decision to ask her out. He doesn’t act very excited, though. At this point he should be skipping in the air, yelling and telling everyone. Instead, he just smiles at Akaashi, hoping that his best friend will get him. That he won’t judge him.

“Seems like a wonderful opportunity. I’m happy for you” Akaashi finally says, and Bokuto is grateful. He’s grateful to his friend because he’s not making any comments, because he’s supporting him instead of openly mocking him. Bokuto knows that, should he tell the rest of the team about his date, they would make jokes about it, Konoha probably more than anyone else. On normal occasions, he wouldn’t be affected by something like that. He would laugh with his friends for trying to laugh at him. This time, however, something is definitely different. He doesn’t even know what it is, he just _knows_. Whatever this is with Kumiko-chan, whatever it’s going to be, it’s fragile, and he needs to be careful not to break it. But he’s glad to have the support of his best friend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading the first chapter. I hope you'll like what comes next, especially considering that I had a lot of fun writing this second chapter.  
> You can always feel free to let me know what you think.

On Sunday afternoon, he meets Kumiko-chan in Tokyo city center. It’s not a long subway ride from where he lives, and he wants to do something nice with her. The moment he sees her, Bokuto immediately thinks he’s lucky, because she’s really pretty. She blushes when he waves at her, and quickly they make their way towards each other. “Hi Koutarou-kun, you look good” she says, embarrassed, and immediately she diverts her gaze. Bokuto shows a wide grin before he responds with a loud “I know, right?” He’s supposed to compliment her back, not to compliment himself, but he’s never been really good at that dating thing. Maybe there’s a reason why, even though many girls at school find him attractive, none of them really want to go out with him.

Kumiko-chan seems to be a little uncomfortable, but she doesn’t appear offended, and that’s good. It’s good because Bokuto would never understand what he’s done wrong. He wants to go out with her, he likes the idea of maybe having a girlfriend, but he doesn’t know the first thing of what he’s supposed to do on a date with a girl. That’s why he decides to organize their date the same way as he’s seen several times on TV. They can go watch a movie, and then maybe get some ice-cream. He offers her his suggestion and she agrees.

When they get to the cinema, he decides they’re going to see an action movie. She’s not entirely happy about it, someone a little less dense than Bokuto might read it on her face, but she doesn’t protest anyway. They get two tickets, and only when she doesn’t make any gesture to pay for hers Bokuto realizes that he’s supposed to pay for her ticket as well. They get the biggest bucket of pop-corn available, because that’s the only way he’s going to accept to share a few mouthfuls, and this time he understands immediately that he’s supposed to pay for her drink as well. Talking about quick progress!

During the entire movie, he never takes his eyes off the screen. Even when he finishes his pop-corn and Kumiko-chan moves to grab his hand during a part that’s supposed to be a little scary, he still keeps his focus on the movie, never on the girl he’s with. He’s the kind of person who gets really emotionally involved while watching a movie. Fifteen minutes before the end, in the middle of the most crucial scene of the movie, he starts screaming at the main character, just like a six-year-old who doesn’t understand that the people inside the screen can’t hear him. He always does something like that, and usually his friends tell him off pretty eloquently. Once Konoha even stuffed a shoe in his mouth so he would stop yelling at the cinema. Kumiko-chan, however, is nice enough not to retaliate on him. In fact, when the movie is over and Bokuto is still mumbling angrily because he doesn’t approve of the death of one of the main characters, the girl tells him that she finds his investment in the movie to be charming. In return, he asks her what _investment_ means, but he thinks it might be a good thing, since Kumiko-chan is smiling after all.

“Do you know any good places to get ice-cream around here?” Kumiko-chan asks while walking away from the cinema. Apparently she lives more in the suburbs of Tokyo, and she rarely gets to hang out in that central area of the city.

“I know a place. Let’s go!” Bokuto replies, and immediately he sets up a pretty quick pace. He’s not jogging, but close enough; Kumiko-chan manages to follow him anyway. The place where they’re going is close to Itachiyama high school, and he thinks that maybe they can swing by the school and take a peek at their practice. It would be nice to be able to see Sakusa’s spikes from up close before the beginning of the next tournament. He still can’t believe that a lame second-year from Itachiyama made the best ace top three while he’s stuck in top five.

He’s almost growling while they walk, lost in his own thoughts about Sakusa and how he’s going to destroy the boy soon. He only gets back to reality when he hears Kumiko-chan asking him a question, even though he doesn’t actually listen to what she’s asking.

“Sorry, can you repeat the question?” he says, shaking his head and trying his best to think about his date instead of going back to volleyball. It’s not an easy task, but he can’t marry volleyball, his mother told him as much when he asked her as a kid, so at some point he’ll have to learn how to behave while going out with a girl.

“I just pointed out that you seem to know your way around here very well. Do you live nearby?” she repeats, and this time Bokuto actually listens. Immediately he shakes his head to reply.

“Not too far, but not in this exact area of town either. I just come here more often, because one of our rival schools is in this part of town and sometimes we go there to play practice matches.” He stops before he can get too carried away. He would like to tell her more about how he intends to crush Itachiyama soon, but even he can understand that maybe that’s not the perfect topic of conversation on a first date.

They reach the ice-cream parlor soon after, and they order an ice-cream cup each. Kumiko-chan’s is of a normal size, while Bokuto’s is huge. He’s going to get a stomach ache for eating all of it, but he doesn’t care, so the moment they sit down at a table with their ice-creams he just dives in. He’s eating so voraciously that he’s managed to smear ice-cream all over his face. Kumiko-chan finds it funny.

“Koutarou-kun, what school do you go to?” she asks to start a conversation while they eat.

“Fukurodani” he replies with his mouth full, hitting his chest with a fist to show how proud he is of his own school. “And you?” he quickly adds, realizing that he should get to know her a little as well. He’s pretty sure she’s not from his own school, otherwise he would have seen her around at some point. Maybe she goes to school closer to their cooking school? There are a couple of high schools not too far from there.

“Wow, Fukurodani is such a good school! I go to Nekoma” Kumiko-chan replies. Bokuto chokes on his ice-cream. He starts coughing, but after about half a minute he gets his composure back and he’s able to breathe again. He looks excited now, really excited, for the first time since the beginning of their date.

“Nekoma? Really? I have lots of friends there! Do you know anyone on the volleyball team?” he inquires, talking very quickly and sitting more comfortably on his chair, now perched on top of it with his feet under his butt.

“Not very well, but a couple of the boys on the team are in my class. Kozume-kun e Yamamoto-kun” she explains, and Bokuto’s eyes brighten even more. He now has both elbows on the table, leaning against it in order to get closer to Kumiko-chan. He’s also very close to getting ice-cream all over his shirt by leaning over his cup.

“So you know Kenma and Tora? So cool! And what about the others?” he keeps asking. Now he’s pretty interested to know as much as possible, but he soon feels disappointed by the fact that she doesn’t know personally any other members of the team. She knows of them though, and she tells him that she’s seen a Nekoma volleyball game once. She thinks that their team is pretty strong. Bokuto of course feels sorry for her, because she hasn’t really seen a strong team until she sees Fukurodani play, but he has the decency not to say that out loud. He’s definitely making some progress. Really, Akaashi would be proud.

He keeps rambling about his friends for a while, because he thinks it’s impossible that she goes to Nekoma but she doesn’t know them. He still hasn’t had the opportunity to meet the new first-years, but he knows second and third-years pretty well by now, after all the training camps they’ve had together in the past couple of years, so he can talk about them. Something strange, however, happens when he mentions Kuroo. Kumiko-chan’s reaction is so weird that even Bokuto understands that something’s wrong. She blushes, diverts her gaze and starts to stutter. This of course gets Bokuto curious.

“Is something wrong? Mentioning my buddy Kuroo got you all weird and stuff” he comments. He’s tactless, that’s for sure. In his defense, he probably doesn’t have the slightest idea of the fact that he’s asked an inappropriate question. Usually, at times like this, Akaashi intervenes informing other people that they have every right to tell him off if he’s bothering them. But Akaashi is not there, and Bokuto can’t understand on his own that he should have kept quiet, or at least asked in a different way.

It takes some convincing, including Bokuto literally poking the girl in the side with his finger, repeatedly, but in the end she talks. She’s completely red in the face and she keeps staring at the floor, while the words struggle to come out of her mouth. Apparently she _does_ know Kuroo, after all. She tells him that, on her first year, she saw Kuroo pretty often, because he was hanging out around her classroom in between classes to check on Kenma, and she thought that he looked really cool. It appears that she bribed Kenma to introduce her to his friend, and when she actually managed to tell Kuroo that she liked him, and that she would have loved to go out with him, he thanked her and refused. From that day on, Kuroo hasn’t set foot in Kenma’s classroom again, and Kenma has always been the one to go to him during breaks in between classes.

Bokuto can’t believe what he’s hearing. Shocked, he drops his spoon on the table. He drops his jaw as well, but that one at least doesn’t get to hit the table, even though it gets pretty close. That, after all, is more or less the last thing he’s ever imagined to hear. A pretty girl asked Kuroo out and he refused? Why? And most of all, why hasn’t Kuroo told him? They’re not the talk-about-feelings kind of friends, but he can say that they’re pretty close, for two people who see each other like once or twice a month. They’re also in competition about pretty much everything, plus Kuroo is an ass, so there’s no way he would have kept something like this to himself. The Kuroo he knows would have bragged about it for months, especially to Bokuto. Something definitely isn’t right here.

“Wait, what? You asked him out and he said no? Are you sure we’re talking about the same person here? Kuroo Tetsurou, Nekoma volleyball captain, tall skinny guy, wicked grin, bedhead, kind of an asshole? That guy?” Bokuto inquires while gesticulating with emphasis, because he’s still struggling to believe her. Since when is Kuroo the kind of guy who turns down a pretty girl without mentioning anything to his friends?

They are indeed talking about the same person, because Kumiko-chan, blushing so much that her face seems to be on fire, simply nods in silence. For a moment Bokuto feels the need to laugh, but he doesn’t. Once again, Akaashi would be proud! That need, however, is immediately shadowed by a different kind of emotion. He feels rage mounting inside of him, and he doesn’t even understand why. Why is he mad about this entire situation? Is it because he just learned that the girl he’s dating was into his friend before being into him? Is it because he didn’t expect Kuroo to keep that kind of secret from him? He’s not sure about the reasons, if he’s jealous or not. All he knows is that, looking at Kumiko-chan, for several seconds he feels the urge to punch something. He wishes he had Akaashi and a ball, because probably hitting a few spikes would be way more productive than throwing punches.

After that awkward moment, the conversation is dead. Both of their ice-creams are melting pretty quickly, but neither of them is eating. Kumiko-chan is still too embarrassed to look in Bokuto’s direction, while he’s still too mad to allow himself to speak. They remain in silence for a while, avoiding each other’s gaze, then they slowly resume eating their almost entirely melted ice-creams. A few spoonfuls later, the situation starts to get a little less awkward, and the two can at least look at each other. Bokuto tries to start another conversation, one that doesn’t involve any of his friends, or volleyball, just to be sure. For the first time since the beginning of the date, he genuinely asks Kumiko-chan some questions about her in order to get to know her better.

He finds out that she loves ballet, and that she wants to be a professional dancer. She’s doing her best with her studies so that she can move to Europe after high school, and her dream is to dance on the greatest stages of Paris. Bokuto doesn’t get what she finds so enticing about ballet, but he understand the need to go all the way, to become the best and perform in front of the entire world. He wants to do that too, one day. He wants to be the greatest ace in the world, and carry Japan to win the gold medal at the Olympics. He likes her drive. “Let’s do our best!” he tells her, showing her his fist. With hesitation, she bumps her fist against his and says that yes, they will do their best. He’s grinning like an idiot at this point.

When the sun sets, they say goodbye to each other at the same subway station where they met earlier in the day. Bokuto takes the subway home, but he’s quiet during the entire ride. He doesn’t call Akaashi to brag about the date, he’ll just tell him tomorrow at school. For now he just rethinks about what happened, about the rage that got him when he found out that Kumiko-chan had a crush on Kuroo. When he leaves the subway, on the short walk home, he feels the need to yell at Kuroo for absolutely no reason. He even takes out his phone to call him, but when he finds his name in his contact list he hesitates. What is he even going to yell at Kuroo about? He sighs and puts his phone back in the left pocket of his jeans.

***

If Akaashi had been there during the date, he would tell Bokuto that it’s gone _horribly_ , that he’s made Kumiko-chan feel bad more than he’s made her laugh, that she’s right if she doesn’t want to talk to him ever again after that terrible experience. He would tell Bokuto that right now he’s not boyfriend material, because all he can think about is volleyball and himself. He would tell his captain that he’s not allowed to go on any more dates with anyone until he learns how to speak to girls. But Akaashi wasn’t there, so he doesn’t know. Therefore, Bokuto thinks that his date has gone great, and that Kumiko-chan is a very lucky girl for dating such a charming guy. He doesn’t realize that he’s basically been on a date with volleyball, and Kumiko-chan has been third-wheeling the entire time.

He tells Akaashi all about his date in between classes. He skips on the part where he made the girl feel miserable, since that part has never happened in his mind, and he only talks about the good stuff. He gives his friend a detailed report on everything that happened from his point of view, that is a little different from reality to be honest. Akaashi listens in silence and he nods from time to time, just to let his friend know that he understands what the other is saying. When he gets to the part about Kuroo, however, Bokuto stops to consider the words to use. How can he explain the situation to Akaashi? But at the same time he’s also sure that, if he manages to tell him everything he felt in that moment, his setter and friend would be able to understand what his problem is and he would explain it to him, so that Bokuto can deal with it.

“And then I felt the need to hit something, and I really wanted to call Kuroo just to yell, even though I didn’t know what to say to him! Why was I so mad, Akaashi? I don’t understand what’s wrong!” he whines, pouting towards his friend. Akaashi’s eyes soften, and for a moment he looks at Bokuto in the same affectionate way a mother looks at her beloved child. By the look in his eyes, it seems that Bokuto has done something incredibly endearing, even though Fukurodani’s captain is the first one who doesn’t understand what he might have done. Then Akaashi smiles at him, and when he talks his voice is calm, reassuring; almost _sweet_.

“You don’t have to worry, Bokuto-san. I think that jealousy is pretty normal at this point. But Kuroo-san is not a bad person. He is your friend, plus he already turned her down once so apparently he doesn’t like her. Therefore you don’t have to worry, Kuroo-san is _not _going to steal your girlfriend” the setter explains. Bokuto blinks twice. Is this what he’s been worrying about? Kuroo stealing his girlfriend? Wait, is Kumiko-chan even his girlfriend at this point? They have only been on one date, after all, and they haven’t even kissed. Maybe she should be, though. Well, Akaashi called her his girlfriend, so she probably is.__

__“Thank you, ‘Kaashi” Bokuto says, then he throws himself at his friend and hugs him so tight that poor Akaashi almost suffocates. When he finally lets the other go, he doesn’t even give him the time to catch his breath. “Now that everything is fine, let’s go practice some spikes!” he yells, then jumping around he starts running towards the gym._ _

__“Bokuto-san, wait! We’re in the middle of the school day!” Akaashi tries to tell him, and with a resigned sigh he can’t do anything other than to run after him, hoping to stop him and bring him back to class._ _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are with another chapter. Thank you again for reading the previous ones, and for the appreciation I received in your comments.  
> As always, I hope you'll enjoy! :)

By the end of the school day, the entire Fukurodani volleyball team knows that Bokuto had a date on Sunday, and that it was incredibly good. He doesn’t tell the others the entire story, though, because he prefers not to mention what Akaashi has been able to identify as jealousy. He tells them that the girl goes to Nekoma, though, and that she knows some of their friends. As expected, his fellow third-years try to make fun of him, but not even that is enough to get him down. He’s so hyped that for the entire duration of practice he’s able to carry the whole team forward. Even the coach is mesmerized, because as much as everyone on the team is used to his mood swings by now, nobody has ever seen him so excited without a crowd cheering for him.

Every thought of rage is gone. Akaashi is very intelligent, and sometimes he just _knows_ things. Therefore if Akaashi says that he was jealous but has no reason to be, then Bokuto believes him. He’s not mad at anyone anymore, not Kumiko-chan nor Kuroo. On the contrary, he’s excited because in five days they’ll be going to training camp, the first one of the school year. He’ll see Kuroo again, and they’ll just practice together like always. His friend doesn’t need to know that he was mad, after all. But one thing is sure: Bokuto is going to brag about Kumiko-chan!

In the evening, after practice, Bokuto gets changed and walks with Akaashi to the subway station. The two of them always walk there together, and then they take the same subway line to go home, even though they get off at different stops. This time, like every Monday, they take different lines altogether, because Bokuto is going to his cooking class. He barely makes it there on time, as always, because every time he forgets that he needs to hit the showers immediately after practice, and he stays behind for a few additional spikes until Akaashi informs him that he’s about to be late. As soon as he gets to the cooking school, his class begins.

From his station, he sees Kumiko-chan smiling at him and waving in his direction when nobody is looking. He looks around, just to make sure that everyone is minding their own business, then he smiles and waves back. The only one who notices is Hiro-san from the neighboring station. “So Koutarou-kun, are you two finally dating or what?” the man asks him in a whisper, then he winks in Bokuto’s direction. For a moment the boy is taken aback, but then he grins and gives Hiro-san a thumbs up. Well, so much for being subtle! For now, however, Hiro-san will be the only one to know. Bokuto needs to talk about this with Kumiko-chan before letting the rest of their class know about them. Especially the four grandmas.

Speaking of. The four old ladies enter the kitchen about twenty minutes into the class. They greet everyone warmly, and they’re greeted back the same way. As always, two of them sit next to Bokuto, even though this time he manages to cook well enough that grandma Mae-san tells him he won’t be needing her anymore. It’s a good sign, and Bokuto is incredibly happy about it. This means that he’s actually getting the hang of it, and soon he’ll be a great cook. Not as amazing as he is a volleyball player, but still pretty fantastic. He says so out loud, while cleaning his station at the end of class. Grandma Hanako-san laughs and tells him that he reminds her so much of her grandson, who at times delights her with that same kind of confidence. Bokuto thinks her grandson must be incredibly cool too, if they’re anything alike.

As soon as everyone is out of the class except for the four grandmas, who are going to attend the advanced class that’s about to start, Bokuto approaches Kumiko-chan. “Hey hey hey! How are you, Kumiko-chan?” he asks. He’s smiling, and she blushes while they walk side by side to exit the building.

“Fine, I think…” she replies, but before Bokuto can say anything else, she resumes speaking. “You know, I liked our date yesterday” she informs him. That probably means she has nothing better to compare it with, but in Bokuto’s mind it means that he was as great as he thinks he was. There’s no changing his mind now!

“Cool. I had fun too! Does it mean that you’re my girlfriend now?” he asks with a smile, stopping his walk and stepping in front of the girl. She blushes again, then puts both hands on his shoulders and raises on her tiptoes. Before Bokuto can think about what’s happening, she’s kissing him. It’s just a quick peck on the lips, really, but it’s so strange and new and somehow good. He likes it. “I take this as a yes!” After saying those words, he hugs her and just laughs. If she’s uncomfortable because of his actions, he doesn’t notice.

On Thursday, before the beginning of class, Kumiko-chan asks him if he’s okay with another date during the weekend. He has to say no, however, explaining to her that he has training camp that weekend, so he’ll be out for two days. He offers to walk her home that evening, though, and he promises that he’ll take her to dinner after class on Monday. She seems to like that plan. That day, Bokuto’s okonomiyaki is just perfect. So good, in fact, that at some point grandma Hanako-san makes a joke about that fact that soon he won’t need her anymore. When he hugs her dramatically, begging her not to leave him, she pinches one of his cheeks. “You’re so adorable, Kou-chan!” she tells him, and he looks like a little child when he grins proudly towards her.

When they’re all about to leave after class, Bokuto waves goodbye to the grandmas and starts walking out of the kitchen. That’s when Kumiko-chan takes his hand and they exit together. He thinks that the old ladies haven’t seen them, but of course he’s wrong, because their excited comments on how cute the two of them are together follow them until they’re out of the building. Well, busted! That means they’ll start asking a million questions about the new teenage couple, and Bokuto will have to answer. Sure, he’s always loved to talk about himself, and having people’s attention, but for some reason he doesn’t like the idea of talking about Kumiko-chan with those ladies. Bragging about her with his friends is one thing, but there’s only so much that you can tell your _grandmother_ about the girl you’re dating!

***

On Saturday morning, when the entire Fukurodani volleyball team gets off the bus in front of Nekoma high school, Bokuto is just hyped. He can’t wait to see everyone again, especially those friends from the other schools that he only sees at training camp. The only person he sometimes meets outside the camps is Kuroo, but he hasn’t seen Nekoma’s captain in a while. In other words he just misses everyone and he can’t wait to meet the new first-years on each team, and of course he can’t wait to face everyone on the court. He’s sure he can spike the ball so hard that he might break the floor, so much he’s excited. He runs ahead of his team, and he’s jumping when he meets the Nekoma team near the gym; at that point he greets most of them in his usual way. He bumps chests with Tora, ruffles Kenma’s hair, fist-bumps both Yaku and Kai, shakes hands with Fukunaga, and then he outright jumps on Kuroo’s back, wrapping his arms and legs around the other boy. He’s laughing the entire time.

“Stupid owl, you’re heavy! Get off!” Kuroo protests, but Bokuto doesn’t care. He just applies more pressure with his thighs around Kuroo’s waist, and his left arm around the other’s neck, so that his right arm is free to wave at the Shinzen team members he sees making their way towards their group together with the rest of Fukurodani. When Bokuto starts to swing in order to better greet everyone, Kuroo seems about to lose his footing. Yet Bokuto doesn’t let go of him. He missed his friend, and he feels guilty for that moment of rage he felt on Sunday. Kuroo is a good buddy, he doesn’t deserve his unmotivated anger.

When Akaashi reaches them, he looks like he’s done with Bokuto’s antics. “Bokuto-san, let go of Kuroo-san before you kill him” the setter says with a remarkable calm, only making Bokuto roll his eyes. “Kuroo-san, you can feel free to use any means you want in order to get him off” Akaashi then advises Kuroo on how to act.

“Akaaaaaaaashiiiiiii” Bokuto whines, feeling betrayed. From that position, however, he can’t see the wicked smile Kuroo is sporting. When his friend starts running backwards into a wall, Bokuto realizes that it’s time to let go. However he’s not quick enough, so he ends up getting smashed between the wall and Kuroo’s back, even though at least he manages to get his feet down first. The force of the hit, however, bounces them both, and they fall to the ground while everyone else laughs.

“Morons...” some of their teammates comment as well, but with a slight note of affection hidden behind the insult.

When the Ubugawa team arrives as well, all of the team members finish their greetings, and the captains introduce their first-years to the others. Bokuto stares in awe for a moment at Nekoma’s _huge_ new middle blocker, and he can’t wait to see him play. Yaku and Kenma, however, shatter his vision of a gigantic champion when they inform Bokuto that the rookie just started volleyball and still kind of sucks. After the greetings and introductions, while the coaches and managers are greeting each other as well, boys from every team start asking Nekoma questions about that Karasuno school that’s supposed to join them for the first time.

“I’ve never heard of them” Bokuto thinks out loud, but the Shinzen and Ubugawa captains just agree. “Are they any good?” Ogano then asks, to which both Kuroo and Tora answer by confirming that they’re pretty good indeed. Bokuto is even more hyped than before, so hyped that he can’t wait for everyone to arrive in order to start playing. He wants to start right away.

“Goura-kun, let’s start playing! I challenge you to a match!” Bokuto shouts, pointing at Ubugawa’s captain. The boy seems to be amused by that request, but in the end Akaashi is the one who replies. “You can’t just go and challenge another school. The coaches will decide the matchups once everyone has arrived. But we can go get changed and start warming up” the setter points out, and Bokuto sighs. Ok, this time he’ll do as he’s told. They start warmups, and soon after Karasuno arrives and the matches start. Bokuto feels so full of energy that his first spike smashes right through Shinzen’s three-men block and scares a first-year half to death.

***

It’s the middle of the afternoon, and they’ve all been playing for hours now. Bokuto, however, can’t seem to be able to get tired. Everyone around him is starting to let go a little, but not him. He is still perfectly concentrated and overexcited. Two matches just ended: Nekoma barely succeeded to defeat Shinzen, while Fukurodani just crushed Karasuno for the second time. The coaches announce a fifteen minute break, and Bokuto decides to make the most out of that free time. Grabbing a towel, he walks towards Kuroo, with Akaashi, Komi and Konoha following him. Nekoma’s captain is catching his breath after the game by drinking some water. Beside him, Kenma has already pulled out his PSP and he’s sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, right next to where Kuroo is standing. He’s concentrated on the game, with Fukunaga and some smiling first-year with brown hair whose name Bokuto doesn’t remember kneeling next to him to watch.

“Kuroo, bro, Karasuno sucks!” Bokuto states. Behind him, his teammates agree. Both Komi and Konoha state that they expected way better, and even though Akaashi, now standing next to Bokuto, keeps silent as a sign of respect or something, Bokuto knows that he thinks the same thing as well. Nobody is going to get stronger by facing such a useless team. Kuroo sighs and watches as Karasuno finishes a lap of flying falls received as punishment for their defeat in the match against Fukurodani.

Hearing the comments about Karasuno, Kenma decides to intervene before Kuroo can say anything. “Their most incredible players aren’t here” the setter says without taking his eyes off the screen. Bokuto seems pretty perplexed at this point. Seriously? He heard that two first-years didn’t make it to the camp, but he never thought they might be so important for the team. Is Kenma bullshitting him? His words are always so emotionless that it’s pretty impossible to understand when he’s joking. Bokuto turns towards Kuroo once again, while both Komi and Konoha laugh a little. Fukurodani’s ace raises an eyebrow and Kuroo replies to his gesture by shrugging. It’s clear that, as much as Nekoma keeps vouching for Karasuno, nobody else seems to think they’re worth the time spent playing against them. There are maybe a couple of impressive players, but among Kanto’s finest they really don’t stand out that much.

There are a few seconds of silence, then Bokuto remembers that he still has something he needs to tell Kuroo. “Kuroo, Kuroo! I need to tell you something super important!” he starts, and Nekoma’s middle blocker leans back against the wall giving him his attention. Only then Bokuto starts talking again. “So I met a girl, really pretty, and she’s my girlfriend now!” he blurts out without stopping to breathe. Kuroo seems to be surprised, judging by the way he raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s looking for the right words to mock Bokuto? Knowing Kuroo, the master of provocation, he’ll say something incredibly nasty regarding both Bokuto and the girl he’s dating. Well, sorry Kuroo, not this time! Because Bokuto just resumes talking before he can say anything.

“Guess what? She goes to Nekoma high school!” he keeps going. “Really, does she?” Kuroo asks, his voice smooth, but it’s clear that he doesn’t have the slightest idea of what to say. For the first time ever, Bokuto feels like he might win with words against Kuroo.

“Oh yes. And she knows Kenma and Tora, because she’s in their class” he continues, and this is interesting enough for Kenma to pause his game and look up. Kuroo resumes drinking while listening, and now Fukunaga is looking towards the Fukurodani players as well. “She said she knows you too, Kuroo. Seems like she asked you out and you turned her down, last year. So rude of you! But thanks, I guess” Bokuto finishes, giving his friend a thumbs-up accompanied by a huge grin.

It’s a reaction of a second, so unpredictable that not even a trained athlete can deal with it so quickly. Kuroo’s eyes widen, and then he spits all the water in his mouth directly at Akaashi’s face. Fukunaga, Konoha and Komi burst out laughing at Akaashi’s pissed expression, while Kenma’s eyes dart towards Kuroo the moment Nekoma’s captain starts coughing as if he’s choking. Bokuto doesn’t understand what’s wrong. “Bro? You okay?” he tries to ask, gently patting Kuroo’s back. The middle blocker doesn’t answer and his breaths are heavy, but at least it doesn’t seem like he’s going to die, and that’s something. However Bokuto still doesn’t understand the reason behind his friend’s reaction. Is it so strange that Kumiko-chan moved on from him and now she’s into someone else?

“Sorry, I was just a little surprised, that’s all. But I’m happy for you” Kuroo manages to say as soon as his breathing goes back to normal. Bokuto isn’t entirely convinced, but he also thinks he should trust his friend. If Kuroo says that everything is fine, then everything _is_ fine, end of discussion.

When the coaches announce that the break is over and declare the next matchup, Bokuto doesn’t feel guilty when he slams a hand against Kuroo’s back and hops towards the court where Fukurodani is soon going to face Ubugawa. Right before he starts his match, as Nekoma is sitting out this time, Bokuto sees Kuroo run out of the gym. For a moment he asks himself what’s wrong, but then the match starts and he forgets about everything else. When Kuroo comes back, before his next match, he’s back to normal after all. For Bokuto, this means that there’s nothing to worry about.

***

After the end of the day’s practice, as always, Bokuto harasses Akaashi in order to convince him to set for him some more. Nobody is willing to keep practicing with them, not even Kuroo, who usually is always ready to try blocking his spikes. While everybody else goes get washed up before dinner, Bokuto and Akaashi stay behind. Bokuto throws the ball in the air and then starts the run-up. Akaashi tosses the ball to him, the perfect height, the perfect distance from the net. Bokuto jumps, his right arm up, and he hits the ball with his hand, slamming it against the wooden floor of the gym. They repeat two, three times, until they realize that someone is watching them. They only turn in that direction when they hear a boy clearing his throat. They’re incredibly surprised to see Kenma.

“Akaashi-san, can you go join the others, please? Bokuto-san, I will toss for you” Nekoma’s setter says. Akaashi stares at him, bewildered, but he’s not nearly as shocked as Bokuto.

Fukurodani’s captain runs towards the younger boy and puts a hand over his forehead, to feel if he’s spiking a fever. Is this a joke? Has somebody put Kenma up to this? Kuroo, maybe? Kenma barely practices when Nekomata-sensei orders him to, so why would he ever offer to toss, for Bokuto of all people, after the official day of training camp is over? “Who are you? What did you do to Kenma?” Bokuto asks with emphasis, alarmed.

Kenma doesn’t answer, or at least not with his words. He just stares in Bokuto’s direction, his eyes so intense they almost burn Bokuto’s skin. He’s never seen Kenma so focused on anything, not even during a match. Is it something he should worry about? Akaashi walks towards them, and he seems to understand the situation better than Bokuto does. “I’ll leave him to you, Kozume-kun. Just... don’t let him wear you down too much, okay? When you’re tired, please feel free to ditch him.” Akaashi’s words offend Bokuto a little, but he can’t find himself able to do anything more than pout, while he watches Kenma nod once, his face devoid of any expression. “See you two later” Akaashi concludes, and then he leaves the gym. Now Bokuto is alone with Kenma.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I would like to thank everyone for reading this story so far.
> 
> Also, next week I'm going back to work, starting Monday. This means that I will have less time to write, but also less time to revise. This story is already complete and entirely revised, but I like to proofread the chapters once again before posting them, and once I'm back at work I'm not sure if I'll still be able to do it in time for my Monday and Thursday updates. But I'll do my best to have the chapters out regularly.
> 
> As always, any kind of feedback is appreciated. :)

There’s a moment of incredibly awkward silence, then a huge stupid grin appears on Bokuto’s face while he starts jumping around. Kenma is going to toss for him, for the first time ever. Saying he’s thrilled is just an understatement. Kenma is such a good setter, he’ll be lucky to spike his tosses! He skips towards the ball and catches it, running back towards his starting position a second after. “Well Kenma, go under the net, we’re starting!” he cries out. Kenma sighs, but he does as he’s told. It’s amazing the way his body doesn’t move by an inch until the moment his hands touch the ball. He’s so difficult to read that it makes it impossible to predict where he’s going to toss in a match. Bokuto hates it and finds it fascinating at the same time.

The first toss is accurate, and Bokuto spikes it violently. It makes Kenma flinch a little, and Bokuto is smirking when he runs back to pick up the ball once again. They start the routine for the second spike, but this time something is different. When he throws the ball to Kenma, the other boy catches it instead of tossing it. Bokuto is about to protest, but then he sees Kenma turn towards him, his face contracted with... worry? He can’t do anything more than to walk towards him, silently asking him what’s wrong. They’ve never been really close, but it doesn’t mean that he wants to see Nekoma’s setter suffer. And the strangest thing of all is that, at a time like this, it has been Kenma’s choice to be alone with Bokuto, meaning that maybe there’s something he can do to help. “Kenma?” he tentatively asks. Kenma takes a deep breath and then he sighs.

“I need your help to understand something, Bokuto-san. I’m worried that Kuro might be lying to me now” Kenma finally says, leaving Bokuto speechless. Fukurodani’s captain only uses a hand gesture to inform the other that he should keep talking. Kenma worries his bottom lip with his teeth for a few seconds, probably still battling with himself to decide if he should talk to Bokuto or not. Where he stands, of course, Bokuto really wants to know what’s wrong. If Kenma is worried about Kuroo, then it might be something really serious, and Bokuto wants to do everything he can to help his friend as well. “Your girlfriend, that you mentioned today...” Kenma resumes talking, and Bokuto doesn’t understand what she has to do with any of that. “That’s Nasaki Kumiko, am I right?” he finally asks, and Bokuto only nods in reply, even though he doesn’t understand what difference it makes.

“I’m so sorry for intruding in your personal affairs, Bokuto-san, but can you tell me what she told you about what happened last year with Kuro?” the younger boy inquires. Bokuto is not sure if he’s more amused because Kenma used the word _affairs_ like an old person, or pissed because what he asked is absolutely none of his business. That’s something between Bokuto and Kumiko-chan only! And Kuroo too, he guesses. So okay, maybe it’s fine for Kenma to be asking about it. Therefore Bokuto, even though a little reluctantly, reports to Kenma everything Kumiko-chan told him about Kuroo during their date. This leaves the setter lost in thought.

“This doesn’t make any sense” Kenma states, and Bokuto doesn’t understand. He only uses the confused expression painted on his face in order to inquire for more information, and Kenma somehow obliges. “He told me that the two of them went out, she was lovely, then she dumped him. I strongly believe one of them is lying, but I can’t tell which one of them” the setter explains. Bokuto blinks. What the hell? He has no reason not to believe Kumiko-chan, she is his girlfriend after all, but at the same time why would Kuroo lie to Kenma? None of this is right. Bokuto grabs his head with both hands, because it’s starting to hurt.

“Are you sure this is so important? I don’t care if one of them lied. Kumiko-chan is my girlfriend now. I’m sorry if she hurt Kuroo, I really am, and I won’t rub it in his face again, but I don’t want to think about it anymore” Fukurodani’s ace complains. He really doesn’t want to lose his mind over something like that. All he cares about is to be happy with his girlfriend and with his friend. Is it too much to ask?

Kenma sighs. “Okay, I won’t bring this up anymore. Now let’s go eat, I want to catch up with Shouyou after dinner” the boy states, then he hands the ball he’s still holding to Bokuto and leaves. Bokuto sighs; he doesn’t even know how this happened, but apparently he’s left there to clean the gym all by himself, after getting a grand total of one toss from Kenma. Great!

***

In the end, training camp works out fine. On Sunday, he laughs and jokes with Kuroo, who really seems to be genuinely happy for him, even though every now and then Bokuto can catch Kenma staring at the other boy with suspicion. He ignores it though, since after all it’s none of his business. All he cares about is that everything is fine between Kuroo and himself. The rest is not important.

When he gets back home from camp he’s still hyped. Like every time they go to training camp, nobody has won as many sets as Fukurodani. Once again he’s proven that he’s the best, and he’s so excited about it that that night he tosses and turns in his bed, unable to fall asleep. He just wants to get up and go play volleyball again. In the morning, however, he feels pretty much like crap for waking up to go to school with only three hours of sleep under his belt. A quick breakfast, however, is enough to get him pumped and ready for morning practice.

That evening, in cooking class, Bokuto notices that grandma Hanako-san seems a little upset. She’s helping him slice some vegetables in perfectly even small cubes, but she is distracted. So distracted, in fact, that she almost cuts herself on Bokuto’s knife, even though he’s the one using it at the moment. That’s definitely _not_ something that she would do on a normal day! This of course catches Bokuto’s curiosity, making him also a little worried. “Grandma, is everything okay?” he finally asks, his voice concerned. On the previous Thursday, she saw him holding hands with Kumiko-chan; then why isn’t she pestering him about it? There must be a reason behind it.

The woman almost startles when she hears his words, but she does a good job at keeping it together. She smiles at him, and raises a hand to cup his cheek. “You’re such a sweet boy, Kou-chan. I’m fine” she replies, her voice so caring. Sometimes Bokuto can really think of her as if she was his real grandmother, not some random old lady he’s known for two months.

Bokuto isn’t sure she’s telling the truth, so his face shows exactly how much he’s uncertain about it. He goes back to cutting his vegetables, though. He only lets his knife hit the cutting board three times before he starts talking again. “But if there _was_ something wrong, and maybe I can do something about it, please tell me. I want to help” he informs her. Maybe he doesn’t understand most of that adult stuff that older people seem to worry about all the time, but if he can offer her some comfort in any way, then he’ll be glad to do it.

She pats his cheek a couple of times and smiles at him again with a love that usually only a relative is able to show. “It’s nothing, Kou-chan, really. I’m just a little worried that something might be wrong with my grandson. That’s all” she finally confesses. After hearing her words, Bokuto gives her one of his best smiles, those that are impossible to resist for pretty much everyone who is lucky enough to witness them. He drops his knife and then takes her hand in both of his.

“You said that your grandson is into volleyball, right? And that sometimes I remind you of him? Then he must be a really cool guy. I can assure you that he’ll be just fine!” he finally states with confidence, believing 100% that what he’s saying is true. This seems to be enough to make the woman smile a little more happily. If she really feels better, or if she just acts like it for the rest of the class, he doesn’t know, but he really hopes that she’ll be fine. And that her grandson will be fine as well, of course, even though he has very little doubt about it anyway.

***

On Wednesday, the following week, the boys of the volleyball club have a free afternoon. After classes, their gym will be closed in order to paint the walls, therefore they won’t be able to practice for the day. Everyone is upset, when they receive the news on Monday morning, but in the end they all try to find something else to do. That same Monday evening, in cooking class, Bokuto decides to tell Kumiko-chan that he’ll pick her up from school on Wednesday. She seems to be really happy about it. She tells him that her music club activities end at 6:30 pm, so Bokuto assures her that he will absolutely be there by that time.

After agreeing with Kumiko-chan that he’ll be going to pick her up, he needs to find something to do while he waits for the girl to finish her club activities. That’s when he has the idea to contact Kuroo. He texts his friend the moment he gets home after cooking class, asking if it’s possible for him to join Nekoma’s practice on Wednesday afternoon while waiting for Kumiko-chan. Kuroo informs him that he will have to ask Nekomata-sensei, but he’ll let Bokuto know as soon as possible.

The following morning, in the middle of his math class, Bokuto receives a text from Kuroo, informing him that he spoke with Nekomata-sensei. Apparently he wasn’t very much into Bokuto joining their practice at the beginning, and it took a little convincing on Kuroo’s part, but in the end he agreed that it will be fine to have Bokuto train with them for one afternoon. They will be playing practice matches and Bokuto will be able to join one of their teams. They will, in fact, be forming two teams of Nekoma players, and Bokuto will be able to choose his own teammates among those players. He feels thrilled at the idea that he will be able to train with his friends from Nekoma for an entire afternoon, and he can’t wait for it to be Wednesday afternoon in order to go to Nekoma high school and play with them.

On Wednesday morning he goes to school with all of his volleyball gear in a bag. Akaashi and Konoha witness his arrival before the beginning of classes, and they reach him to ask him what’s going on. “Did you forget that we don’t have practice today?” Konoha asks, almost making fun of him as usual.

Bokuto shakes his head and goes to reply to the question. “I know, but after school I’m going to Nekoma to pick up my girlfriend, and Nekomata-sensei said that I can join Nekoma for afternoon practice” he explains. Konoha laughs, and even Akaashi smiles at him, amused.

“You can’t even go a day without volleyball, can you?” the setter inquires, but he’s not mocking his captain, he’s actually talking with a lot of affection in his voice. Bokuto just laughs with his friends at that statement, because why would he ever want to spend a day without volleyball?

***

On Wednesday afternoon, Bokuto arrives to Nekoma high school as soon as possible, after he finishes his own classes. He sprints out of school as soon as he can, but the subway ride and then the train to the suburbs are long and it takes some time to get there. When he reaches the gym, they’re already training. Nekomata-sensei welcomes him and tells him to hurry up and get changed, and Bokuto runs towards the locker rooms. When he’s wearing his volleyball gear, including Fukurodani’s entire uniform just to brag a little about the fact that he’s from another school, he steps back into the gym. At that point, the coach gathers all of the players at the center of the gym. Then he appoints Kuroo and Bokuto as team captains, and allows them to pick their own teammates.

They pick one role at a time, and each of them has to call the name of the person they’re picking. First pick is libero, and Kuroo chooses Yaku before Bokuto can even open his mouth to pronounce the name, leaving him with first-year Shibayama. When it’s the turn of wing spikers, he’s quick to choose Tora and Kai as well, but Bokuto ends up with Fukunaga, who isn’t half bad either. He also picks Lev as middle blocker, for Kuroo’s disappointment, and he can’t wait to play with him on the same team after seeing what he can do during a couple of matches at training camp. He also ends up with some other first-year named Inuoka, who seems to be promising enough. Kuroo, however, ends up picking Kenma as setter, so he is stuck with the first-year back up setter who pretty much sucks. But when the game starts he’s still extremely excited, and he can’t wait to play as much as possible.

At the beginning of the game, Bokuto is serving. He does a jump serve that’s a service ace, right in front of Yaku. “Eat that, Yakkun!” he yells, while all of the first-years look at him in awe. Not many people are able to score like that on Yaku, and they probably find it incredibly interesting that someone is able to do it right at the beginning of a match, without having even warmed up or stretched before serving. But at the same time they’re still not exactly used to seeing Bokuto play at his best, like second and third-years instead are, so they can’t be blamed for being shocked by his ability when he’s trying to be serious. And right now, even though it’s a practice game, he’s more serious than he’s ever been at training camp. Because he’s playing against Kuroo and Yaku and he really wants to score on them both.

The game goes on, and Bokuto’s team takes the first set, even though it’s only by a two points difference. In the second set, however, Kuroo’s team is doing way better. He has the most experienced players, after all, while Bokuto is mostly stuck with first-years, so it goes without saying which one is the team with the best defense in the long run. In addition to that, Kuroo is also starting to stuff as many of Bokuto’s spikes as possible, and when he doesn’t, Yaku is always there to dig them. They indeed live up to their name of a team specialized in defense, after all. And they’re absolutely good at that. But Bokuto is still in a Nekoma players team, and in the end the first-year libero can hold his own. Sure, he’s no Yaku, and he’s no Komi either, but he can dig a few bad spikes and he saves the team in more than one occasion. When they lose that second set, Bokuto isn’t even upset. He’s just thrilled, and he can’t wait to play another.

“How about we change the teams now? I’ll pick the teams this time” Nekomata-sensei tells the boys before they start the third set. This is how Bokuto finds himself in the same team as Kuroo and Kenma. Even though they have Yaku on the other side of the net, this time he knows that he can easily destroy his opponents. With Kuroo’s blocks, his spikes and Kenma’s setting that is impossible to understand until the last second, they can do magical things. Plus he’s starting to grow fond of little Shibayama as libero. And in fact they win the first set, even though it’s not as easy as Bokuto initially thought it would be.

They start playing another set, and they’re in the middle of it when Bokuto scores a perfect point by spiking against Tora, who isn’t able to keep the ball on court. Kuroo turns around and raises a hand for a high five, and Bokuto gladly hits it with his. It’s now Kenma’s turn to serve. He doesn’t have any special moves, so he serves an easy-to-receive ball to the opposing team. Receive, set, then Fukunaga goes for the spike, but Kuroo stuffs him perfectly. That’s when Bokuto runs towards him and jumps on his back. Kuroo is laughing, hands under Bokuto’s thighs in order to support his weight, and Bokuto is hugging him tight with both arms and legs. He’s happy and carefree at the moment. Everything seems to be so perfect that it reminds him of several training camps in the past, where all he did was having fun with his usual friends. He forgets about Kumiko-chan entirely.

And that is exactly when Kumiko-chan enters the gym. She’s carrying her flute after music club activities are over, and she looks for him on the court among the other boys. He’s not difficult to spot, with his Fukurodani jersey. She finds him on Kuroo’s back, still hugging his friend as if that’s the most normal thing in the world to do. And for him, actually, it is. Being with his friends, especially the closest ones like Kuroo, touching and hugging is absolutely normal. “Koutarou-kun, weren’t you supposed to wait for me outside of the building? And of course I find you here playing volleyball” she says, and only then Bokuto notices her presence.

“Oh, you’re busted” Kuroo comments in an amused whisper, turning his head to smirk at him, while Bokuto jumps off of his back. When he’s back on the ground, Bokuto mumbles an apology and goes to collect his stuff.

“Take a shower and get out of here, Bokuto-kun. Don’t keep this young lady waiting” Nekomata-sensei tells him, and he nods.

He quickly runs out of the gym, but before he’s gone he hears somebody saying “Nasaki you’re a spoilsport” followed by a “Shut up, Yamamoto!” that is undoubtedly pronounced by Kumiko-chan.

***

After he’s showered and changed into some normal clothes, Bokuto exits the gym and meets Kumiko-chan. He mumbles some more apologies, and she doesn’t seem to be very happy about the entire situation. He tries to bribe her by telling her that he would really like to take her to dinner, and she accepts. After that, everything gets a little better. They have a nice and peaceful evening together, but Bokuto is still not having much fun. He’s still thinking about the game he was forced to abandon, and the friends he left of course. He would have preferred to stay there at Nekoma playing with the others, instead of going out on that date.

The moment he realizes that, he automatically shuts down and enters his dejected state, but he tries his best to hide it from Kumiko-chan. He doesn’t want her to realize that he doesn’t want to be there with her at the moment, and that he would have preferred to stay behind with his friends instead. Therefore he just smiles at her, and they finish their evening without any complications. He walks her home before going home as well.


	5. Chapter 5

The following day, at school, Akaashi asks him how things went the day before, and Bokuto can’t shut up about the sets he played with Kuroo, Kenma, Tora, Yaku and all the others. Akaashi looks at him with an unreadable expression, and when he’s finished, his tale ending with “And then Kumiko-chan interrupted the game and we went on our date”, Akaashi can’t stay silent anymore.

“Bokuto-san, I was actually asking you about your date, not the sets you played with Nekoma. I already know how Nekoma plays, we play with them all the time” he says, and Bokuto is perplexed. The date? Why would Akaashi ask him about some girl instead of talking about Nekoma?

“Oh, the date was fine, but I don’t know… I’m not really sure that it will still be fine in the future, you know. Well, maybe I was just a little dejected because I wanted to keep playing, that’s it. I can’t know for sure. Well, let’s talk about something else!” is his reply, a really confused one that doesn’t give Akaashi any actual knowledge of what happened during their evening out. But the setter is still his best friend, who very well knows when it’s useless to insist with him. Such as in that situation, for example.

***

On Thursday, at cooking school, Bokuto and Kumiko-chan barely look at each other the entire time. Something is clearly up with them, and grandma Hanako-san is the first one to notice, since she’s always sitting next to Bokuto. She tries more than once to ask him what is wrong, but he refuses to answer. When he finally tells her that it’s nothing to be concerned about, she shakes her head and tries again. “But Kou-chan, you two make such a cute couple. If something is wrong, don’t you want to fix it?” she asks. And yes, he would really like to fix whatever is wrong, but not in the way the woman thinks. He’s actually thinking about breaking up with the girl, because he somehow _can’t feel it;_ not really, at least. Sure, he likes her and everything, but is that really enough? She doesn’t make his world spin, she doesn’t give him butterflies in his stomach, she just... _doesn’t_. Then what is he supposed to do? Just accept the fact that they will be a boring couple forever only because they look cute together? 

“I don’t know if I want to be with her anymore. I don’t know what the problem is, but I’m not sure I really like her. At least, I think I do, but really I don’t know...” he finally says, his voice nothing more than a low whisper, when grandma Hanako-san manages to make him talk. He is intent in cleaning some fish, when he stops every activity and turns around to look at the woman. “Is there something wrong with me, if I’m not sure that I like such a pretty and nice girl?” he asks her. He’s almost whining, his eyes wet, but he’s not going to cry. Not there, not for something like that.

The woman just caresses his face, the same way she does every time he says something that she considers to be extremely sweet, and then she smiles at him. “Kou-chan, it’s okay, really. You’re not forced to like her. If you don’t, however, you should break up with her, because it’s not fair to her to still be together. She likes you and she thinks you like her back the same way, so if you don’t you should tell her” the woman explains, and Bokuto listens in silence.

Is he really going to tell Kumiko-chan that he doesn’t like her? Well, how can he? He’s not even sure that he actually doesn’t like her! He’s never experienced that strange sensation in the stomach that people in love often describe. What if he’s never going to feel it? He does feel something similar when he’s with some of his friends, however, but it’s not the same. His heartbeat racing when he jumped on Kuroo’s back, during the game, was excitement for the point scored, nothing else. It wasn’t the closeness to his friend that gave him that sensation in his chest, as if someone was trying to hammer at it with violence. Then why can’t he feel that same thing when he’s with Kumiko-chan? Is volleyball really his only love? Well, maybe it is. But will it be like that forever? That, of course, he still can’t know.

Grandma Hanako-san tries to counsel him on what to do, but Bokuto is still too confused to accept any advice. But at least he listens to her words and takes them all in, trying to store them in his mind so that he can maybe think about them later, when he is alone in his bedroom at home, without people staring at him and expecting things from him. He doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, but at the same time he really doesn’t want to be unhappy either. And will he be unhappy if he remains with Kumiko-chan?

In the end, he decides that maybe it was all a big misunderstanding. Everything is fine with his girlfriend, and he doesn’t need to get worried about the small stuff. He goes to sleep with that thought in mind, but when he wakes up the following morning the uncomfortable feeling from the day before is back, and this time it doesn’t go away. It remains with him throughout the entire weekend. Luckily, however, after that the summer break will begin, and both school and cooking school with stop for a while. Maybe he’ll feel better if he doesn’t have to see Kumiko-chan and the grandmas all the time. He loves the old women, specially grandma Hanako-san, but he would really prefer if they stopped asking him too many personal questions, especially about how things are going between him and his girlfriend. After all, they’ve managed to make even _him_ feel uncomfortable while talking about himself.

***

During summer break, training camp will last an entire week. As always, it will take place at the Shinzen Academy, and everyone will be there. Including Karasuno, the new addition from the previous camp; that, to be completely honest, doesn’t suck as much as Bokuto initially thought. When camp starts, Bokuto immediately catches up with his friends. He hasn’t seen them in two weeks, the ones from Nekoma even less than that, but he still has plenty to talk about with all of them. They play sets, they have fun, as they always do. And still as always, Fukurodani is the team that wins the most sets out of everyone. Because Bokuto is so awesome, of course, and the rest of his team isn’t half bad itself, he supposes.

He is however intrigued by the people on Karasuno team. They seem to be trying all new kinds of stuff, new attacks, even combinations, and they pretty much fail at everything. Playing with them is now unpredictable, and it’s also a lot more fun than it was playing them before, when they were regular and boring. Sure, he still can whip their asses with his eyes closed and a hand behind his back, but at least now he has fun watching them screw up whatever they’re trying to accomplish on the court.

Every evening, after practice for the day is over, Bokuto trains some more with some of his friends. Akaashi is always with him, of course, because he will never be able to get rid of Bokuto when there is still time to toss him a ball to spike. And on most days Kuroo and Tsukki from Karasuno practice with them as well. Well, Kuroo practices with them willingly, while Tsukki needs to be forced every time to join them, at least for the first few days. Then after a few days also Lev from Nekoma and Hinata from Karasuno join them in the evening practice, and Bokuto discovers how much he has in common with Karasuno’s little middle blocker. It’s almost like the shrimp is a shorter and less awesome version of himself, and he really wants to see the kid succeed in becoming the best out there – well, the best after him, of course.

During the time he spends at training camp, however, he realizes more than ever that there is nothing he loves more than playing volleyball with his friends. Hanging out with Kumiko-chan is nice, but he doesn’t like that girl the same way he likes volleyball, or spending time with his friends and playing together. He doesn’t want to think about it, but he can’t stop himself from doing it anyway. Is he ever going to like her as much as he likes his friends? Will she ever be the one who comes first in his heart? Or, well, will any girl ever be that great true love for him?

Along with the rest of his friends, during the time they have together at training camp, he spends time looking at the managers of the teams. He would never think of Fukurodani’s managers as more than dear friends; people say they’re hot, but for him it’s almost as if he’s hearing someone say that his sisters are hot. It doesn’t disturb him, but it disgusts him a little. As for the managers of the other schools, however, that’s an entirely different story. In particular, pretty much everyone at camp is head over heels for the girl in the glasses from Karasuno. They all seem to be looking at her all the time, and making comments about her. Bokuto can see that she’s beautiful, but he doesn’t understand what’s attracting the others so much. One evening, when they’re eating, she even asks him if he wants any more rice; Konoha and Komi almost die of envy, but he’s not bothered at all.

Is he not attracted to that girl because he has a girlfriend? No, that probably isn’t the reason at all. He doesn’t even think about Kumiko-chan when Karasuno’s manager is talking to him. To be honest, in fact, he doesn’t think about Kumiko-chan much in general, those days. He doesn’t call her, he doesn’t text her. He doesn’t even check his phone to see if she’s contacted him. In fact, his phone has been neglected from the moment he arrived at camp, the battery dead by the second day and never charged. This in itself should be an indication that he doesn’t care enough about Kumiko-chan. After all, compared to the opportunity of extra evening practice with Akaashi and Kuroo, what power does a girl really hold?

Are things ever going to be any different, with another girl instead of his current girlfriend? Will another girl, any other girl, be able to enchant him? Will he ever be able to value a girl more than he does the little moments of happiness he shares with his friends? They’re playing three on three; Bokuto, Akaashi and Hinata versus Kuroo, Tsukki and the gangly kid from Nekoma. Bokuto receives the ball, Akaashi tosses it and Hinata spikes, scoring. The little smile on Akaashi’s lips, and the excitement of the shrimp, are extremely contagious, and Bokuto can’t help but laugh, he’s just so happy. Can a girl ever give him that same sensation?

Akaashi tosses to him, Bokuto jumps to spike, and Kuroo kills it. On the other side of the net, he can see the satisfied smirk on Kuroo’s face. Even though he just lost a point, Bokuto can feel himself bursting with energy, his stomach giving him that strange feeling of butterflies. He’s felt the same thing before, when he was practicing with Nekoma and Kuroo scored with a block. He associates it to the excitement of having someone that can be such a great challenge for him. No, no girl in the world will ever be able to top that amazing sensation. He can’t do anything other than smile, happy to be there with those friends instead of being home with his girlfriend.

***

By the sixth day of training camp, Bokuto’s mind is crystal clear. He doesn’t like Kumiko-chan, after all. Not in the way he’s supposed to, at least. Nor he likes any other girl he knows, not even that hot Shimizu from Karasuno that everyone else is pining after. But what does that mean exactly? Does it mean that he’ll never really like anyone? Or just that he’s not interested in girls? When he looks at girls, after all, he can’t imagine himself ever feeling that attraction everyone else feels towards them. He gets more excited when Akaashi tosses for him than when he thinks about the possibility of seeing a naked girl. What does it say about him? Is there anything other than volleyball that can make him feel the ecstasy of pure bliss? Is there a human being that can make him feel that way? In order to understand this, on the morning of his sixth day of training camp, Bokuto starts thinking that maybe the problem is that he has always only thought about girls. Maybe he should look for that desired excitement in boys, after all.

Is it even possible for him to like boys instead of girls? He’s never considered that possibility before. He has always thought that it’s normal for boys to like girls, so he has just assumed that of course it is the same for him. But what if it isn’t? Some boys like other boys, after all. He’s never thought it might be his case, but maybe it is. And there is only one way to find out if it’s true: taking his time to look at boys the same way as everyone else looks at girls, to see if there’s one of them that he might like. If he feels any attraction to even one boy he will know that it’s true, and that he actually likes boys after all. But where should he start from?

While the entire Fukurodani team gets dressed before the start of practice, Bokuto takes a good look at his teammates. They all have athletes’ bodies, good bodies; if he likes boys, he should feel some kind of attraction looking at them. He doesn’t feel anything, though, and it leaves him incredibly confused. Maybe there’s nothing because they’re just his friends? He sighs while putting on a t-shirt, and then he turns to look at Akaashi right beside him. Akaashi is beautiful, everyone knows that. He looks like an angel, and girls usually say that he’s prettier than them. Even though he has beautiful and delicate features, his body is still strong and masculine. In other words, if there is any boy Bokuto knows that might catch his attention, that’s Akaashi.

While looking at his best friend, however, that’s all Bokuto sees: his best friend. He recognizes Akaashi’s beauty, he’s not blind after all, but it doesn’t do anything to him. And that’s the moment he starts having doubts once again. If he doesn’t feel any kind of attraction towards Akaashi, does it mean that he doesn’t really like boys either? Maybe he was wrong after all, and he’s not the kind of guy who likes other guys. But if that’s the case, is there anyone that he might like? He doesn’t like girls, he doesn’t like boys. Is there something wrong with him? He even tries to take a closer look at some of the boys on the other teams. Not all of them, just the ones who appear to be more successful with the ladies. Still nothing, not even from Karasuno’s Sugawara, who qualifies as _beautiful_ almost as much as Akaashi does.

He’s starting to lose any hope he had in the beginning. Maybe he doesn’t like neither boys nor girls. Maybe he’ll never really like anyone. Sure, he can feel fond of someone, as he does with Kumiko-chan, but will he ever feel that special spark with anyone? Will someone be able to make his entire world spin out of control? If such a person exists, they’re not at that training camp though.

Those thoughts keep Bokuto’s mind more occupied than he would like, and before he knows it’s the last evening of summer training camp. As usual, after the day’s regular training he claims gym number 3 with his friends to train some more. Akaashi and Kuroo are with him as always, as well as Nekoma’s Lev and Karasuno’s Tsukki and Hinata. After playing three on three matches just like they’ve done each evening for the past few days, they all agree that it’s time to stop and call it a night. Okay, maybe Bokuto and Hinata don’t really agree with that, but Lev is exhausted, Akaashi and Tsukki refuse to keep going and even Kuroo is starting to look too tired to keep playing, so they have to stop.

Now that he stopped playing, Bokuto is starting to feel a little tired as well, probably because the mere idea of cleaning up the gymnasium is weighing on him like a rock on his back. Everyone else, however, is doing their part, meaning that he can’t just slack off and let the others clean after him if he doesn’t want to get his ass kicked. Akaashi is dangerous when he’s mad, after all, and both Kuroo and Tsukki scare him enough that he decides to behave like a good boy. The temperature, however, is so hot that he finds it hard to breathe. And he probably isn’t the only one to think like that, because Hinata has his t-shirt lifted to leave his back uncovered, and it’s rolled up against his shoulders so that it can stay in place without risking to fall back down.

Bokuto is about to copy Hinata, hoping to find a little relief from the heat by applying such a measure, when a voice catches his attention. “This gym is too hot, I’m going to spontaneously combust!” Kuroo states, and Bokuto turns towards him to laugh at his words, but any trace of laughter dies in his throat before it can even try to come out. Kuroo is taking off his shirt, and Bokuto feels compelled to watch. He’s never thought that Kuroo might be one of the people he should study to see if he likes boys. He is, however, the first one to appear as interesting before his eyes. Bokuto’s mouth goes dry, and it’s not for the heat of the gymnasium. It’s because _Kuroo_ is hot.

He’s never thought about Kuroo like that before. He’s never even considered him as one of the boys from other teams that girls might like, so that’s the first time he’s taking his time to really look at him. His body is gorgeous, and even though it doesn’t look too different from many others he’s seen every day, there’s something else that he can’t really put his finger on that prevents him from taking his eyes away from his friend. Kuroo doesn’t notice that he’s staring, as he keeps swiping the floor with Lev. Akaashi, however, sees that something seems to be wrong with Bokuto, because he leaves Tsukki by the net that they’re supposed to take down together and puts a hand on Bokuto’s shoulder. “Stop staring at nothing, keep working like everyone else” his best friend tells him, snapping him back to reality. Well, at least he hasn’t noticed what exactly Bokuto is staring at. And it’s better if Akaashi keeps thinking that he’s just slacking off, instead of realizing the truth. To be honest, Bokuto is not sure if he’ll ever be ready to tell Akaashi about what he’s just found out.

Saying that Bokuto is shocked is an understatement. When he goes back to grabbing stuff to put away, his head is not exactly concentrated on what he’s doing. At some point, he even starts taking all of the volleyballs out of the chest and putting them on the floor, instead of the other way around. He only realizes what he’s doing when Hinata starts laughing at him for messing up, probably thinking that he’s doing it on purpose. Luckily, he can get back on track before Akaashi sees him, so his best friend doesn’t have another reason to get mad at him. In any case, he’s still too lost in his own thoughts to even pay attention to what he’s doing. Because he just realized that maybe he might find someone attractive, the way he has never felt attracted before. Sue him if he needs a moment to adjust!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank everyone for the kudos and comments I received, and also for the nice words that some of you had to say regarding my characterization of Bokuto. I hope the next chapters won't disappoint.  
> Thank you all for reading! :)

The last day of training camp is hell. Bokuto’s mind is entirely elsewhere, he can’t stop thinking about the evening before. He can’t even manage to look Kuroo in the eye, something that’s never happened in their years of friendship. Does it mean that he’s going to ruin their friendship with his stupid behavior? He doesn’t want things to change, he wants to keep his friendship with Kuroo the way it is. The sheer thought that he might find Kuroo attractive, however, is enough to make him lose his concentration. He doesn’t do very well when they play against Nekoma that morning, but at least they end up winning anyway. Not an easy task to accomplish, when the ace of the team refuses to look at the opposing middle blocker. Fukurodani, however, is really a great team, and they’re able to win even though Bokuto spikes at random without looking at Kuroo's position.

Their last set of the day is against Karasuno, right before lunch, and that’s when the problems start. He’s playing against his pupil, and the entire Karasuno team shows incredible improvement since the beginning of training camp. They’re still a long way from Fukurodani’s level, but this time Bokuto thinks they’ll have to make an effort in order to win against Karasuno. Not like the previous times, when they just played without paying too much attention and they still won by a lot. No, this time Karasuno is proving itself to be a good opponent. This of course doesn’t help Bokuto’s situation, especially when Hinata uses the special move that Bokuto taught him to score a point against Fukurodani. From there, everything goes downwards, and soon Bokuto is losing his mind entirely.

Missing a spike is probably what does it. He starts feeling ashamed of himself, and before he can even stop his own mind, he gets lost in depressing thoughts. He thinks about letting his team down, and people finding out that he might like a boy, and _Kuroo_ finding out that he finds him attractive. That’s why he ends up going into dejected mode, asking Akaashi not to toss to him anymore. His team is used to his antics, he should know that they appreciate him anyway. Still, every time he hears Akaashi say that they’ll go on without him, his heart breaks a little. He knows his team is strong; sure, individually he’s the strongest player, but his teammates can easily win even without him in almost every occasion. He shouldn’t worry about the victory, they can keep playing even if he’s not in tiptop shape. At the same time, however, he feels offended, because his teammates just go on without him, and they don’t stop to try and cheer him up. They just keep playing, as if their captain wasn’t feeling miserable just a few steps away. 

Sarukui scores with a beautiful spike, and Bokuto hears the other teams comment the play from the sidelines. Most of them, however, are talking about how curious it is to see Bokuto like that. It makes him feel restless, giving him the need to do something to make them change their mind about him. He wants to be admired, he craves it. So when he hears Kuroo laugh he takes a look at the score, realizing that they’re one point away from winning. And he feels the need to score that point, to make everyone shut up. For some reason, he needs Kuroo to stop laughing at him, and only showing how good he is can do the trick. He’s starting to feel agitated, until Akaashi finally tosses to him. In just an instant he’s in the air, spiking with so much strength that no one can dig that ball. Winning the set. Nobody is laughing at him anymore now, and Bokuto feels awesome again, especially when his teammates compliment his superior ability. Every thought of Kuroo is now out of his head completely.

It’s then time for lunch, and the coaches are treating the teams to a barbecue. The joy of winning is still there, but now the enthusiasm for the meat he’s going to eat adds on, and all Bokuto can think about is eating as much as he can and having fun with his friends. He jokes around with some of the boys on the other teams, he even steals some meat from Kuroo, and he laughs with Hinata. For a couple of hours he’s not thinking about his internal struggle to understand if he really likes boys or if what he felt the previous evening was just a fleeting thought.

When Karasuno is the first team to leave, since they have to drive the farthest, everyone else starts saying goodbye as well. Fukurodani and Nekoma teams are both from Tokyo, so they see each other all the time even without attending training camp, but they don’t have many more occasions to see the Ubugawa and Shinzen teams, if not at training camp. Then, after the goodbyes, the teams get back on their buses and they go back home. When Fukurodani’s bus departs, right behind Nekoma’s, Bokuto takes out his phone with the intention of opening his text conversation with Kuroo. He wants to send something stupid to his friend, but only then he realizes that his battery is dead. It’s probably been out for days, actually. He stares at the black screen of his phone for a few seconds, disappointed, then he just sighs and puts the phone away. Beside him, Akaashi doesn’t notice anything, as he’s dozing off while listening to music with his headphones on.

***

The following days, Bokuto doesn’t know what to think anymore. He isn’t sure if what he felt at training camp was just a fleeting thought or if it’s real, if it’s just Kuroo or if it’s more than just one guy. Since school is still closed for summer vacations, Bokuto has more free time. Fukurodani trains almost the entire day, but at some point his teammates get too tired to keep going and he is left on his own. He decides to use that time to go out with Kumiko-chan. She’s still his girlfriend, after all. Moreover, he needs to test a theory. He needs to understand if he can really like a boy more than he likes his own girlfriend. That’s why they agree to meet on Tuesday afternoon. Most of Bokuto’s teammates are still exhausted from training camp, so their coach has decided that every other day they can have the afternoon free. Bokuto thinks it’s stupid, because there is nothing he’d like to do more than to train before the qualifiers to the Spring Tournament. Yet he finds himself with a lot of spare time, and he decides to occupy that Tuesday afternoon by going out with Kumiko-chan.

The girl doesn’t seem to be happy with him, when he calls her on Monday, while they’re having lunch break between morning and afternoon practice. She’s actually pretty mad because he ignored her existence entirely for a whole week. But it’s not like he ignored her because it’s _her_. He ignored her because nothing will ever be as important as volleyball for him. But of course even someone as thick as Bokuto can understand that he’s not supposed to tell her that, at least not with those words. Therefore all he tells her is that he’s been thinking about her, and that he’d like to meet her. They agree to go out on Tuesday, and that’s how he finds himself at the station waiting for the train to take him to the suburbs, where they’re going to have their date. Kumiko-chan is the one who chose the place. It’s a park that, if Bokuto understands correctly, isn’t far from where she lives.

When he gets there, she’s already waiting. She is talking to a guy who seems to be a few years older, probably in his twenties, and Bokuto should feel jealous, he knows he should, but he doesn’t. To be honest, he doesn’t even care enough to ask her who the guy is. He just gets there and greets her with a quick kiss, then he introduces himself to the guy. Who, by the way, is gorgeous. Crap, that’s a sign. It’s not just Kuroo and it’s not just one time. He feels that attraction right now, looking at the guy he soon finds out is Kumiko-chan’s neighbor. He’s never stopped to think at what he might like in another person, but now he thinks he might understand what it is. Maybe his type is tall, with a smartass grin that makes him wonder if he should punch it off their face or kiss it, and with the body of an athlete. If that’s really what he likes, then Kumiko-chan’s neighbor qualifies perfectly, just like his friend Kuroo does. But he doesn’t want to think about Kuroo, he doesn’t like the idea of possibly being attracted to one of his closest friends. Therefore he only concentrates on what is right in front of him. For the five minutes he spends making polite conversation, before his girlfriend hauls him away, Bokuto doesn’t spare Kumiko-chan a single glance. Sure, he still holds her hand, but she’s the last thought on his mind in such an important moment of revelation.

It’s true, then. He likes boys. Not just one boy, just one time. He likes boys in general, and he even has a very specific type. That’s something big for him to find out. He’s not even sure if he knows how to really process it through his mind. What does it even mean? Is he really gay? What will his friends think about him if they find out? Is he even going to tell them? He has to admit that he’s a little scared to find out. One thing he knows for sure, however: he can’t lie to Kumiko-chan. Okay, maybe he’s not going to tell her everything, but he needs to break up with her. She really likes him, he can see that, but he doesn’t like her back the same way, and that’s only going to hurt her in the long run, just like grandma Hanako-san told him. What he doesn’t know, however, is how to break up with her. Talking to girls isn’t easy when they’re just chatting; how can he manage to even start that kind of conversation instead?

They’re walking around the park, holding hands, but Bokuto’s grip is loose. He’s not even putting any effort in faking some kind of interest in what they’re doing, or in being together. And she’s not stupid, it won’t take her long to figure out that something is wrong. Especially because he has disappeared on her for an entire week. And that in particular is something she keeps mentioning, as if she’s hoping to receive an answer that’s different from the first one Bokuto gave her. But what else can he tell her to make her feel satisfied? Should he tell her that he’s spent the week with another girl, cheating on her? That would be a lie. He really spent the week playing volleyball, and nothing more than that. He actually keeps repeating that answer, hoping to appease the girl, but it doesn’t seem to work.

At some point, she abruptly stops walking, forcing him to stop his movements as well. “I can’t believe you! It’s just not possible, you know? I love dancing, but I would never forget that I have a boyfriend, or even that I have _a phone_ , just because I’m dancing. You forgot about me for a week, Koutarou-kun! I don’t believe that it was just volleyball!” she complains while letting go of Bokuto’s hand with a quick movement, and Bokuto really doesn’t know how to reply to that. What else can he do to make her understand that it was really just volleyball? She’s starting to get on his nerves.

“But it’s the truth. I was just playing volleyball the entire time. You can ask your school’s team, they were there. I swear!” he tries to reply, his voice a little annoyed. But how can he be blamed? This girlfriend thing doesn’t seem to be as fun as he originally thought it would be. He likes Kumiko-chan as a person, but he doesn’t have any true feelings for her. And it’s not like she’s doing much to be liked, at the moment. She is acting jealous because he chose volleyball over her, as if that’s even up for discussion. Of course there is no way a girl can be more important than volleyball. Volleyball is his life! How can’t she understand that? She should feel the same about ballet, based on what she told him on their first date. Then why is it so difficult for her to understand what he’s saying?

“If you want to be my boyfriend, you need to do better than that!” she continues to accuse him, and at this point Bokuto just frowns. Well, who says that he wants to be her boyfriend? He was already thinking about breaking up with her, so now she’s only serving him the perfect occasion on a silver plate.

“Then maybe I shouldn’t be your boyfriend” he says. She just freezes when she hears him say those words. He doesn’t want to hurt her, after all he still cares about her as a possible friend, but at the same time he still has to tell the truth. Lying wouldn’t do any good to anyone at this point anyway.

Kumiko-chan seems to be furious. Bokuto would like to calm her down, but at the same time he doesn’t want to risk making his words unclear. He wants her to understand what he’s saying perfectly: he doesn’t want to be her boyfriend. “What did you just say? You’re not really thinking that, are you?” she tries, shocked. She’s shaking a little, but Bokuto can’t understand if it’s because she’s mad at him or because he just hurt her. He would like to reach out and comfort her, but he doesn’t do anything of the sort. Probably touching her would just make things worse for both of them.

“Actually I do. I like you, but maybe I don’t like you enough. You should be with someone who can really make you happy” he tells her in reply, because that’s really what he thinks. He really does wish her all the happiness in the world. He’s just sure that she’ll never find any if she stays with him, that’s it. He will never be able to give her what she wants, what she deserves, and that’s not fair to either of them. By breaking up with her, Bokuto is setting Kumiko-chan free, so that she can find someone who’s a better fit for her than he’ll ever be. He’s doing something good for the both of them. The girl, unfortunately, doesn’t take it that way. On the contrary, she feels ashamed and angered. Bokuto would like to tell her that it’s not her fault, that he’s the one at fault here, but he realizes that maybe it’s better if he just keeps his mouth shut.

“Are you breaking up with me?” she asks, tears forming in her eyes. She’s probably trying her best not to let them fall, but even someone as dense as Bokuto can see that she’s about to lose that struggle. She’s obviously sad, but her lips are contracted with an expression of rage. He doesn’t say anything else, he just nods in silence. The boy even keeps his head down, feeling guilty. He never wanted to hurt her, but nevertheless he’s gone and done exactly that. Can he ever forgive himself for leading her on and then dumping her? It’s all his fault, after all. And what will the four grandmothers think when they’ll get back to cooking school? Will they understand why Bokuto has decided to break up with Kumiko-chan, or will they all just take the girl’s side and never speak to him again? He’s really starting to like them, after all, so it would be sad if they decide to shut him out. Well, at least one of them should be able to understand, since she suggested him to break up with Kumiko-chan. But what about the other three?

Even though not answering out loud seems to be the best thing to do at the moment, it most likely isn’t. Or at least Kumiko-chan doesn’t think it is. “You can’t even talk to me now? This is really how much you don’t care about me?” she shouts, and at that Bokuto raises his head to look at her. He chews on his bottom lip, trying to figure out what to say without putting himself in an even worse situation, but before he can open his mouth she resumes talking. “You know what?” she says. “Screw you! I don’t want to see you ever again!”

And with that she storms away, leaving Bokuto standing alone in the middle of a park basically on the opposite side of town from where he lives. He sighs, looking in the direction where he saw Kumiko-chan walk away just a moment ago. She’s mad, of course. He ruined everything, and now things will be different when they’ll go back to their cooking class. For a moment, actually, he even thinks about asking his mother to send him to a different cooking school. But he can’t run away from his problems. He needs to face them, because he can’t just wish them away. He’ll have to see Kumiko-chan again after the end of summer break, and just hope that she had enough time to calm down.


	7. Chapter 7

He doesn’t even know for how long he just stands there, as if waiting for something to happen. Then he decides to move, and starts walking towards the closest station to get the next train back to the city. The closest station, however, is also the closest one to Nekoma high school. Now that he thinks about it, he remembers Kumiko-chan telling him that she lives close to her school, at some point. He only realizes that it’s the closest station to Nekoma, however, when he sees Kuroo and Kenma enter the station in their gym clothes, probably tired after volleyball practice. The two of them are talking about something that seems to amuse Kuroo a lot, while Kenma doesn’t seem to be as happy about it. At first they don’t see him, and Bokuto is not sure if he wants them to. It however only lasts for a second, because immediately after that he starts walking towards them, a fake smile on his face.

“Hi, I wasn’t expecting to see you guys here” he says, as if they’re the ones who are currently on the opposite side of town from where they’re supposed to be. Kenma gives him an unimpressed look, and Kuroo pats his back while greeting him with one of his best wicked grins.

“Bokuto, just the person I wanted to see. Can you help me make Kenma understand that he needs to train more than four times a week if he wants to make it to Nationals?” Nekoma’s captain says, and at this point they both look at Nekoma’s setter. The poor boy doesn’t seem to be interested in taking part in that conversation, while Kuroo is just looking for support in his usual struggle to convince Kenma to do physical activity.

Bokuto takes Kuroo’s side, of course, and Kenma tries to complain about it, but after a minute or so they’re all laughing. Okay, maybe Bokuto and Kuroo are laughing, poor Kenma not so much, but whatever. That’s when the conversation becomes more serious, and the other two inquire about what he’s doing there. Kenma is actually the one asking the question, probably to steer the conversation away from his physical exertion. Bokuto doesn’t want to explain in detail what happened with Kumiko-chan, not yet at least, so he just settles for telling the truth but without entering in any details. “I had a date with Kumiko-chan nearby, and I’m on my way home” he says. He knows that it’s still early, and that no dates usually end at that time without a good reason, but he just hopes that the other two are so clueless about dating that they won’t realize what might be off with his timings.

When he mentions his date with Kumiko-chan, for a moment he thinks that Kuroo changes expression completely. Does it mean that his friend still likes the girl? He always acts weird wherever she is concerned. Well, if he likes her he can have her. Bokuto won’t get mad at him, if he decides to ask her out now that they’re over. She deserves someone who actually cares about her a lot, and if that person is Kuroo, then he can only be happy for them. Sincerely. Kuroo’s reaction doesn’t go unnoticed not only by Bokuto, but by Kenma as well. The younger boy glares at his best friend as if trying to understand what’s wrong with him, then he just shakes his head and starts playing a game on his phone, taking himself out of the conversation.

“What about you? Are you coming back from practice?” Bokuto then asks, trying to make a peaceful conversation that doesn’t involve his former girlfriend.

“Yes, we just finished. We were going to my place to play some videogames, would you like to come too?” Kuroo replies, inviting Bokuto to his house.

Fukurodani’s captain takes a few moments to think about the offer, wondering if it’s right to accept it. He really needs to get distracted, and playing videogames with Kuroo and Kenma probably should do the trick. At the same time, however, he’s worried that he won’t be much company in the state he’s in now. He’s not in the same dejected mode that he so easily reaches for any kind of possible reason, but he’s close to that state actually. He doesn’t want for Kuroo and Kenma to be alone with him if things get bad. The other third-years on his team are the only ones, beside his parents and Akaashi, who can calm him down when he gets in a really bad mood. He doesn’t want for Kuroo and Kenma to see him like that, and to be forced to be the ones to console him when everything starts going wrong. But at the same time maybe nothing bad will happen. If he has enough fun with them, he’ll forget all about Kumiko-chan and their discussion, and he’ll just be happy to be with his friends.

The entire time he thinks, Kuroo is looking at him with a raised eyebrow, probably perplexed because of how long it’s taking him to make such a simple decision. Kenma, on the other hand, doesn’t pay him any more attention, now concentrated on his game and probably not even interested in Bokuto’s answer. In the end, he decides that maybe it would do him some good to accept. “I’d love to come along. As long as I can choose what we play” Bokuto then says, trying to smile to his friends.

Kuroo laughs at that, leaving him to wonder what’s so funny about what he just said. “That’s fine for me. But don’t get your hopes up, because whatever you choose, Kenma is going to win anyway” Kuroo states, and Bokuto smiles at that. Well, maybe it’s true that Kenma is going to win anyway, but he’s not going down without a proper fight.

The three of them take the train together, and while they’re on the way, Bokuto realizes that he doesn’t really know where Kuroo lives. They’ve been friends for years now, they’ve seen each other several times around Tokyo, going places together, and even doing activities that aren’t directly connected to volleyball. Still, he’s never been to Kuroo’s house before. He knows that his friend doesn’t live too far from his school, but he’s just now finding out that he lives at least far enough that he needs to take the train to get there. Well, that’s the suburbs. The city center is more concentrated, and easier to move around. Bokuto doesn’t live in the city center himself, but he’s still closer than his friend, apparently, since Nekoma high school is already outside the city by a lot and now they’re riding a train that’s taking them even farther out.

They get off the train a couple of stations after they got in, and Kuroo leads the way. Bokuto follows right after him, making small talk about volleyball and commenting on episodes that happened during their week-long training camp. Kenma walks behind them, eyes glued to his phone, still playing a game and apparently not even watching where he’s going. Bokuto has always wondered how the boy can even manage to walk at all; he knows that, if he tried doing it himself, he’d just crash against the first wall or trip on his own feet.

The conversation is light, and Bokuto starts feeling a little better. He is, however, still nervous because of the way he ended things with Kumiko-chan. Maybe he could have handled it differently, and that’s a thought he can’t get out of his head, even while his friend is talking about an eating contest he recently had with Yaku, and that he surprisingly lost. On a normal day, Bokuto would suffocate with laughter just by hearing that Yaku, who is roughly half the other’s size, won an eating contest against Kuroo. At the moment, however, the idea barely registers as funny in his mind. He smiles, but at this point his friend can easily notice that there’s something definitely wrong with him. Hands in his pockets, Kuroo looks at Bokuto with suspicion. Walking with both arms folded behind his head, Bokuto tries his best to avoid his friend’s gaze. He only manages, however, to appear even more out of character, considering how cheerful he usually is when chatting with his friends about stupid stuff.

“What’s wrong with you?” Nekoma’s captain asks all of a sudden. Well, apparently he noticed that something’s wrong, after all. Even Kenma lifts his head to look at him for a moment, before going back to his game. Fukurodani’s ace tries his best to come up with an excuse, but he can’t find any. All he can do is tell the truth, even though he’s not sure he wants to tell the _entire_ truth. He’s not sure he’s ready to talk about his complete failure as a boyfriend, because that might lead the conversation in a direction where Bokuto doesn’t want it to go. He doesn’t want Kuroo and Kenma to know that he’s starting to think he might be gay, he doesn’t want them to look at him differently. That’s why he decides to keep the conversation safe, far from the subject that’s risking to out him before he can even figure out if he’s really gay or not.

“The truth is that my date with Kumiko-chan didn’t go very well. We had a huge fight because I never called during the entire week of training camp. I tried my best to calm her down, but I couldn’t. I think I messed up, Kuroo” Bokuto finally says, explaining to his friend what happened but leaving out the part where he broke up with the girl. He finishes talking at the same time as they reach a small house, and they stop right in front of the door. Kuroo puts in the key to open the front door, but instead of unlocking it he just stops and turns towards Bokuto to study him. Kenma nonchalantly puts his phone back in his pocket, and now he’s looking at Bokuto as well. Under the scrutiny of both Nekoma players, Fukurodani’s captain starts feeling even more uncomfortable.

“You screwed up, bro. You’ll probably have to grovel to make her forgive you. You know that, right?” Kuroo states, and Bokuto sighs at that. Oh yes, he knows that well enough. Sure, they’re not a couple anymore and he has no intention of getting back together, but he doesn’t want the girl to hate him either. He’s well aware of the fact that he’ll have to think of something to make her forgive him. “Yeah, I know” he finally mumbles while Kuroo opens the door to let everyone in.

Too lost in his own thoughts, Bokuto doesn’t even spare a minute to look around and take in his surroundings. He can see that he’s standing in a living room, but he doesn’t study the details of it. From the corner of his eye, he can see Kenma leaving his backpack on the floor by the closest couch and start making his way towards the stairs. He’s already halfway up the stairs when Kuroo tells Bokuto to follow him, and he obliges. He finds himself in the kitchen, where his host opens the fridge looking for something cold to offer his guests. “What do you want to drink?” Kuroo asks, and Bokuto shrugs, letting his friend understand that everything is fine with him.

They grab a bottle of cold tea and three glasses, then Bokuto follows Kuroo up the stairs. When they enter what can only be Kuroo’s bedroom, Kenma is already sitting on the bed, a joystick in his hands, Xbox turned on. They keep their promise to let Bokuto choose the game, and soon they’re all taking turns to play. During the times he’s not playing, Bokuto looks at his friends with fondness. Kenma never takes his eyes off the TV the entire time, but Kuroo sometimes turns in Bokuto’s direction and smiles at him. It’s a strange sensation, he has to admit, but at the same time it’s something he really likes. Bokuto feels at peace in that situation, and all of a sudden he’s really glad for deciding to accept Kuroo’s invitation. Spending the rest of the afternoon playing videogames with his friends – and losing to Kenma the entire time – is the best way he can think of to get the fight with Kumiko-chan out of his mind. What he can’t take completely out of his mind, however, is the real reason behind the fight, the one not even the girl is aware of: the fact that he might be interested in guys. To stop thinking about it isn’t an easy task, especially when he’s sitting so close to a boy he’s attracted to that with every movement they risk touching. The fact that they’re in said boy’s bedroom, sitting on his bed, isn’t helping either. But he already told himself that _no_ , he won’t let himself like Kuroo that way, for his own good, so he tries to think about something else.

The boys keep playing videogames until it’s dinner time. Kenma is the first one to realize what time it is, not because he’s hungry but because his mother is waiting for him at home, and he really doesn’t want her to get mad. They stop playing, and Kuroo sighs with disappointment. “Wait, do you really have to go? You can stay over for dinner, if you want. Both of you” he says to the other two, and Bokuto can see how much Kuroo likes the idea of his friends staying over to keep him company.

“Are you alone?” Bokuto asks. “Yes. My dad is out of town on a work trip, and my grandparents went to see my aunt in Hokkaido. And I’m getting bored of eating instant ramen alone in front of the TV. Would you stay, please?” Kuroo invites them again. Kenma, however, refuses, and he says goodbye before going back home. He lives two houses over, Bokuto learns.

Bokuto, on the other hand, really thinks about the possibility of staying. Kuroo is looking at him with hope, and his parents already know that he’ll be coming home late, after all. Maybe it’s a good idea to stay for dinner. “I can stay, sure. What are we eating?” Bokuto finally says, and his friend replies with a huge grin.

The two of them turn off the Xbox and go back downstairs, where they open the fridge looking for something to eat. “I must warn you, I’m not that good at cooking” Kuroo says while they’re looking at what’s inside the fridge. That’s when it’s Bokuto’s time to grin. Well, time to shine! All of those cooking lessons should have taken him somewhere at this point! It’s time to show his friend that he’s getting pretty good at cooking, actually.

“No worries bro, I’ll cook. Let’s see what we have to work with” Bokuto states. He inspects the inside of the fridge, and in the end he decides that with what they have there he can easily cook some kake udon. It’s not much, just a pretty simple dish, but it’s good enough to fill their stomachs. And he can’t wait to see how impressed Kuroo will be with his skills. Of course he’s never going to tell him that he’s going to cooking school, but he actually can’t wait to show off a little.

He moves around the kitchen like someone who actually belongs there. It’s the first time he’s cooking outside of cooking school, considering that his mother still hasn’t lifted his banishment from their own kitchen, but he’s still pretty confident that he can pull this off. After all that’s a dish he’s cooked before, with grandma Hanako-san sitting right beside him and helping him with the final touches that made the recipe even better. While preparing the dish for Kuroo, he makes sure to use the same finishing touches that grandma Hanako-san did in cooking class, hoping that the result would end up being as good as it was that time. He won’t make much of an impression on his friend if he ends up screwing up their dinner, after all. And he likes the idea of seeing an impressed look on Kuroo’s face. He doesn’t want his friend to laugh at him for failing miserably, especially on a day like this.

“This smells awesome” Nekoma’s captain states, hovering behind Bokuto while he’s working at the stove. Bokuto grins widely hearing those words. “Just wait until you taste it. I’m pretty sure it’s really good too!” the wing spiker brags, now feeling more confident in what he’s doing. It doesn’t take him long, and maybe he does a mess of the kitchen counter, but they’ll have time to clean it up later at some point. He doesn’t want to think about cleaning up while he’s cooking, enjoying the result of his hard work comes first. When everything is ready, he puts it into two bowls and serves both of them with generous portions. They’re teenage boys, after all, and they’re athletes, they need to eat a lot to get stronger.

They sit down at the kitchen table, and Bokuto is the first one to dig in and start eating. Maybe it’s not as good as it was when grandma Hanako-san was helping him cook it, but it’s still pretty decent. Actually, it’s probably one of the best things he’s ever cooked without any help. And he has to admit that using grandma Hanako-san’s secret ingredient just proved to be a great idea. It’s really making the result even better. He’s already stuffing his mouth when Kuroo smells the bowl in front of him and grins. “Itadakimasu” he says, before starting to eat. After taking the first bite, he opens his eyes wide and stares at Bokuto in shock.

“Is something wrong?” Bokuto asks when he realizes that Kuroo is looking at him instead of eating. He even starts worrying that maybe he did something wrong while cooking that dish, and that he has accidentally killed his friend.

After that, Kuroo just shakes his head and grins. “This is exactly the way I like it, you know? I can’t believe you put black sesame in there, even though it’s not in the original recipe. Where did you learn that?” the boy asks, and Bokuto freezes for a second. Of course he can’t tell him that he’s learned that from an old lady at cooking school, so he needs to find a different answer that might fit in the situation.

“My grandmother showed me how to do it” he replies, and Kuroo laughs at that, leaving Bokuto pretty confused. “Well, maybe there is an alternative recipe after all, because my grandmother does it like this as well, and it’s the way I like it best” he states, and Bokuto can only smile back at him, proud because he’s been able to cook something that’s making his friend happy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last couple of chapters have been a little slower, but with this one we're finally entering in the main focus of the story.
> 
> In this chapter, warning for mentions of internalized homophobia.
> 
> I would also like to thank everyone for the support you've shown me so far. I really appreciate your feedback on this story so far.  
> I'll take this chance to inform you all that within the next few days I'll be starting to post another Bokuroo fanfiction that I have already finished writing and that will continue to be posted along with this one. The new one will be completely different from this one though, as it will basically be 17 chapters of plot-driven smut.

They continue eating while joking around, and they also talk a little about volleyball as well. After all, that’s their main topic of conversation most of the time they’re together, so of course they pretty much always end up talking about it. They don’t bother cleaning up after eating, as Kuroo states that he’s going to do the dishes in the morning. They don’t want to go back to Kuroo’s bedroom and play more videogames, so they decide to go outside instead, and they start tossing a volleyball at each other on the sidewalk in front of the house. Bokuto notices Kenma watching them from his window, after a few minutes, and he asks the other boy if he wants to join them. Kenma’s reply is to shut the window and go back to his computer. Well, his loss, Bokuto thinks. Even though Kuroo immediately lets him know that it’s pointless, because Kenma is never going to come out and join them anyway.

In the end, he has a lot of fun with Kuroo, and when it’s time to go back home he’s smiling the entire train and subway ride back. When he gets home, he greets his parents with a huge grin, and his mother immediately asks him if he’s had fun on his date. That’s when Bokuto’s smile falters. He’s had so much fun at Kuroo’s that he’s forgotten almost entirely about Kumiko-chan and their fight. He’s forgotten about breaking up with her, but his mother’s words remind him about that too.

“We broke up, actually. I spent the evening at Kuroo’s playing videogames and volleyball. It was fun” he finally replies with a shrug. His mother seems to be a little sad to hear that he broke up with his girlfriend, but at least she doesn’t ask him too many questions about it, and that’s something. She usually inquires a lot about his private life, and he doesn’t feel like talking about Kumiko-chan right now. Not when the time spent with Kuroo has been enough to forget all about the girl.

He retreats to his bedroom soon after, and a few minutes later he’s in his boxers lying on his bed, thinking about the day he just had. After meeting with Kumiko-chan he was pretty upset. So upset, in fact, that he didn’t even want to go play videogames with his friends at first, uncertain if he was going to get past the bad moment and have fun. But then everything changed when he was at Kuroo’s. Even though Kenma has won every game they played together, he’s had a lot of fun anyway. He also liked cooking for Kuroo, and the impressed expression on his friend’s face when he liked Bokuto’s cooking.

Being with Kuroo is easy. He is the kind of friend who doesn’t try to change him, who doesn’t stop him when he wants to do something stupid. He’s not a spoilsport like Akaashi, who always feels the need to be the responsible one. Kuroo is indeed more responsible than him, but when they’re together he’s just another dumb kid, and that’s probably one of the reasons why Bokuto can have more fun with him than with anyone else.

If he has to think of a person he’d like to spend the rest of his life with, the answer would easily be Kuroo. He hates himself for even thinking about it, but that’s the truth. He wants to keep their friendship the way it is, he doesn’t want anything to change, and most of all he doesn’t want to ruin anything. At the same time, however, he still thinks that Kuroo is pretty attractive, and he feels warm when he thinks about his friend eating the dish he cooked. Maybe if he needs to choose someone to be more than his friend, his boyfriend even, Kuroo would be the perfect fit, after all.

That’s however a thought that can never even leave his own mind. In fact, it’s a thought that he needs to stop immediately, before it can get bad. No, Kuroo is one of his closest friends, and he can’t want something like that with him. First of all it’s impossible, because Kuroo likes girls. Hell, he probably likes his now ex-girlfriend! How can he even think about the possibility of Kuroo ever liking him back? That’s just absurd. Then, of course, there is the issue of ruining their friendship. What if they manage to get together and it doesn’t end well? He really doesn’t want to lose Kuroo as a friend. No, they need to stay friends just like they are at the moment. That’s when Bokuto starts trying to convince himself that he doesn’t really want Kuroo as more than a friend. If he convinces himself that he doesn’t like Kuroo, then it has to be the truth.

Bokuto sighs, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. He doesn’t like Kuroo, he never will. Kuroo is his friend. He ignores the butterflies flying around his stomach every time he thinks about the other boy.

***

When summer break is over, Bokuto isn’t happy at all. He doesn’t like the idea of going back to school, as he hates attending classes. Most of his classes bore him to death, while math actually confuses him to no end. Attending classes also takes away precious time he could spend doing something more constructive for his future, such as playing volleyball for example. In addition to that, going back to school also means going back to cooking school as well, and he’s not sure if he’s ready for that. He still hasn’t told any of his friends that he broke up with Kumiko-chan, too distracted by volleyball to even care, but on the first Monday back he finally tells Akaashi at lunch, while letting his friend know why he’s worried about going to his cooking class that evening.

“You will have to face her at some point, Bokuto-san” the setter states, and Bokuto knows that he’s right of course, but he can’t stop his mind from wandering in the wrong direction.

That evening, after volleyball practice, he goes to cooking school as always. When he gets there, Kumiko-chan is already at her station, talking with some other people they know. She doesn’t spare a glance in his direction, not even when he greets the people she’s talking to and tries to greet her as well. Well, not the best way to begin, he has to admit.

When he settles in his usual spot, Hiro-san from the neighboring station leans towards him. “Trouble in paradise, eh?” he comments in a confidential way.

Bokuto sighs. “I broke up with her, and now she’s not talking to me, I guess” the boy explains.

The man nods in a knowing way, then he pats Bokuto on the shoulder. “It’s probably for the best. Just give her time to process it, okay?” he suggests, and Bokuto nods while thanking him.

Telling Hiro-san hasn’t been difficult, but he also has to admit that Hiro-san has always been more interested in laughing with him than in caring for the other members of their group. What about everyone else? Has Kumiko-chan already started slandering him in front of everyone? And what are the four grandmas going to say when they find out about it? They’re the ones who cheered for the two of them from the beginning, pushing them towards each other. Are they going to be disappointed in him, when they’ll find out that he’s dumped the girl? At the same time, however, he can’t really be blamed. If he doesn’t like her the same way she likes him, then he shouldn’t be with her, end of story. She deserves to find someone else, and after all he does too.

Cooking class starts, and they all concentrate on the task at hand. A few of the younger women, however, keep sending disappointed glances in his direction. It means that Kumiko-chan has most likely told them about what he did. But he can’t let that affect him, not while he’s handling knives and fire, or he’s going to risk making a huge mess, or hurting himself, or both. His mood, however, is starting to go down the drain. He now feels uncertain, and he’s quickly losing his usual confidence. That’s when the four grandmas enter the classroom. As always, they greet everyone, starting with Fujiko-sensei, and then they find someone who’s struggling to sit with. Without even taking a look at the mess Bokuto is doing, grandma Hanako-san goes to sit by his side. Two others go to Kumiko-chan, because they can easily notice how much she’s struggling, while the last one finds that an older man in the back of the classroom really needs some help.

When grandma Hanako-san sits beside him, Bokuto greets her with a fake smile. He doesn’t want to let her see how much he’s feeling down, so he prefers to fake enthusiasm. That’s probably the reason why he easily notices that there’s something wrong with the woman as well. She greets him with a soft smile, but after that she only tells him what he’s doing wrong with his dish. She doesn’t offer any more words of encouragement, she doesn’t talk about anything actually. Knowing the kind of person that she is, he imagines she should be one to ask him all about his summer break, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t even ask him about Kumiko-chan. In fact, she seems to be sad, probably lost in thought. To be honest, it seems like she’s feeling even worse than Bokuto, if that’s possible.

What could have happened to her? Bokuto doesn’t understand. She’s usually all smiles, with lots of nice things to say. She usually pinches his cheeks, and talks about her grandson. She always has something to say, she’s never boring. At the moment, however, she doesn’t even seem like herself, and Bokuto is starting to quickly get worried about her. Maybe something happened to her during that summer break. He wants to ask her, to try and comfort her, but he doesn’t know how. Is it even appropriate for a kid like him to ask that kind of questions to an elderly woman? Sure, she’s always intruding on what’s going on with him, but that’s different, isn’t it? If he’s the one asking questions, things might look creepy, and he might pass for a rude person, when he’s actually just concerned for her well-being. That’s why he decides to keep his concerns for himself.

His resolution works for a total of twenty minutes. Grandma Hanako-san is so out of character that he can’t even look at her without feeling bad for the woman. He really needs to do something, and fast. That’s why he decides to inquire about what’s wrong with her. “It’s nothing, Kou-chan. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine” she says, giving him a soft smile and patting his cheek with fondness. After that, however, she averts her gaze again and Bokuto finds himself wondering once again what’s wrong with her.

“Are you sure? You don’t seem like yourself. You can talk to me, if you want” he tries again, and at that the woman gives him a look that seems almost maternal.

“You’re so sweet, Kou-chan. But really, I’m fine. I’m just a little worried about my grandson, that’s all” she tells him, and that’s enough to catch Bokuto’s attention even more. He stops cutting vegetables and concentrates entirely on the woman. He’s always thought her grandson has to be super cool, being that he’s into volleyball and all, so he’s a little upset in hearing that something might be wrong with him.

“Is something wrong with him, then?” he ends up asking, and the woman takes some time before answering. Bokuto is now giving her his undivided attention, to the point that he’s risking burning the salmon he’s cooking. The woman, however, takes some time before she starts talking.

“Two days ago my grandson came to me and confessed that he’s gay. I understand that he’s known for a while now, but he’s still having trouble accepting himself for who he is. I’m worried about him, because he’s a good kid, he really is, and I don’t care if he likes boys. I only care that he’s happy, and I tried to tell him, but he doesn’t listen to me. He just keeps saying that he doesn’t want to be gay, that he wants to be _normal_. I think he’s afraid of what his friends would say to him if they find out. He’s a popular kid now, but he was so shy growing up, and I’m afraid he might shut everyone out and go back to the way he was as a kid, before volleyball helped him grow up. You’re a boy his age, so maybe you know: are kids nowadays really this cruel to each other?” she tells him, almost crying and looking anywhere but at Bokuto. The boy can’t believe what he’s rearing.

Is the universe trying to screw with him? Because there isn’t any other explanation for what’s happening to him at the moment. He just spent _days_ trying to wrap his head around the fact that he might really be gay, and now grandma Hanako-san is telling him that her grandson, the one that sometimes Bokuto reminds her of, is gay. Is destiny trying to tell him something? Is this all happening in order to help him deal with what’s going on with him? There’s probably no one who can understand grandma Hanako-san’s grandson better than Bokuto. Because at the moment he’s actually going through a similar phase, even though he’s not sure he’s entirely there yet. Part of Bokuto, after all, is still trying to rationalize his thoughts, trying to find a different kind of explanation for what he felt with Kumiko-chan’s neighbor at the park, and what he keeps feeling with Kuroo. An explanation that doesn’t mean he’s gay.

He’d like to say something to the woman. Something to comfort her, to make her feel a little better. Something that isn’t confessing he might be gay as well. The truth is, however, that he has no idea of what to tell her. He may look like a hypocrite if he tells her that everything is going to be fine, and that her grandson is going to be okay. To be honest, actually, that’s just something he’s hoping for. If the other boy is going through the same crisis he his, maybe seeing him come out on the other side and be happy is a sign that Bokuto can do it as well. If the other boy can get past the crisis, then maybe Bokuto can too. But of course he can’t say that out loud, he can’t be this selfish, so he tentatively pats the woman’s shoulder, completely forgetting about the fish that he’s now definitely burning.

After taking a few long breaths, he decides that he has to do something, or at least try. “I’m sorry he’s going through that. It’s true though, kids our age can be mean sometimes, but not all of them are. Are you worried that he isn’t happy, then?” he says. He’s not sure that those are the right words, but they’re the only ones he can think of.

At that, the woman sighs and shakes her head. “I know that he’s not happy. He’s in love with one of his closest friends. One who’s straight and also has a girlfriend. My baby boy hates himself for being in love” she explains. Bokuto can see that she seems to be moments away from crying. It’s a sight he doesn’t like at all. Grandma Hanako-san is a really nice old lady, she doesn’t deserve to suffer for something like this. But her grandson is probably an okay guy himself, so he doesn’t deserve what he’s going through either.

Bokuto can still relate though. Sure, he’s not in love with a friend who has a girlfriend, but sometimes he’s still afraid that he might maybe like one of his straight friends as well. He has tried his best to convince himself that he doesn’t like Kuroo, for days, but it’s easier said than done. He prefers not to think about it, though, because he doesn’t want to consider the implications of something like that. This means that he doesn’t have the slightest idea of how to comfort her, because he doesn’t know what he could say in order to make her feel better about her grandson’s situation. The boy is definitely not in a good situation, meaning that grandma Hanako-san won’t be either until her grandson is happy again. Does it mean that Bokuto has to help her grandson if he wants to see the woman smile again? That’s not going to be an easy task, considering that he doesn’t have the slightest intention of telling her about his own crisis. He doesn’t want to reveal that he’s struggling with a similar situation right now. That’s something he still doesn’t feel like discussing, after all.

He can’t do much to help the woman, and as a result his day at cooking school is crappy. His dish is disgusting, his mentor is still sad, Fujiko-sensei is now keeping a close eye on his actions, and Kumiko-chan is not talking to him, while some of the other women in the class are glaring at him with disappointment. Yes, definitely not his best day. He can’t wait to go home when class is over, and that night he even has problems falling asleep. He actually feels uncomfortable, because he can’t shake that image of the sad old lady out of his mind. Is his mother going to get like that, if he tells her about his own problems? Well, of course he’s not going to let anything like that happen. He’s never going to tell anyone about his own crisis, because he’s going to make it disappear. He doesn’t want to be gay, so he’s not going to be. End of story.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we jump into the new chapter, I would like to thank you all for reading until now.
> 
> I would also like to inform the Bokuroo shippers out there that there's a very interesting Discord server dedicated to this ship. You can click [HERE](https://discord.gg/t4bzwYb) to join the server and find more people to talk about our favorite boys.

For the following weeks, things don’t get any better. Every Monday and Thursday he attends his cooking class as always, but the situation is still pretty much the same as the day he came back after summer break. Everyone now knows about him breaking up with Kumiko-chan, and several more people are glaring at him with disgust or disappointment when they find themselves looking in his direction. Every time he also tries to talk to the girl, but she still doesn’t even acknowledge his existence. Bokuto is about to resign himself to the fact that nothing will ever be the same as it was before. Not after what he’s done. Luckily, however, not everyone cares about him dumping the girl, so at least some of the other people keep acting normal around him. Hiro-san, actually, is even mocking him about this entire situation, along with another couple of men in their thirties, and that alone can make him feel a little better.

The biggest problem, however, is still grandma Hanako-san. The woman seems to be a little better than the first time she talked about her grandson’s crisis, probably because at that time the boy’s confession was still too fresh, but she’s still far from fine. She’s back to helping Bokuto with his dishes, however, and he’s back on track in actually learning how to cook more difficult stuff. Sometimes, however, he can see from the corner of his eye that the woman gets lost in thought. He would love to do something to help her, but all he can do at the moment is ask her about her grandson every time they see each other. Maybe by talking about the situation she can start getting over the hurt, and maybe she can even find a solution to help the boy.

Every time he asks about the old woman’s grandson, however, Bokuto is silently hoping to hear her say that the boy has gotten over whatever was troubling him, that he’s fine now, and that he’s found somebody. Because if that boy can do it, then Bokuto can too, at some point. Unfortunately, however, the situation is always the same, and the woman never has any good news.

In the meantime, word about Bokuto’s breakup with Kumiko-chan is spreading everywhere. After summer break he only told Akaashi, but in the following days he tells the rest of his team as well. His best friend, however, is the only one he tells that he’s the one who broke up with the girl, even though not even Akaashi gets the entire story. To everyone else he only talks about not being together anymore, so people just assume that she’s the one who dumped him, and he lets them. It’s better that way, after all. Less questions, just a little more mocking, and he’s fine with it.

At the following training camp, a weekend a couple of weeks after the end of summer break, the news of his breakup spreads among the other schools as well. The people who weeks ago couldn’t believe he had a girlfriend now laugh when hearing that he’s been dumped. Sure, he also receives a little sympathy by some of the other boys, and the managers are ready to comfort him because they assume he’s going to get depressed if they don’t, but most of the people just think that everything has gone back to normal, and he doesn’t do anything to contradict them.

Bokuto keeps training with his friends at the end of the first day of training camp. After the week long training camp a few weeks ago, they have a new routine. It’s always the six of them: Bokuto, Akaashi, Kuroo, Hinata, Tsukki and Lev. They keep going until late in the evening, when they’re too tired to even stand up. On that Saturday evening, Bokuto is conflicted. Part of him wants to keep training with them even after Tsukki has collapsed on the floor because of the exertion, while another part of him just wants to flee the scene. Now that he’s started having doubts about what he might feel towards Kuroo, he always has butterflies in his stomach every time his friend talks to him, or even just smiles at him. It’s annoying and it’s pointless, because Bokuto doesn’t want to like Kuroo. The problem is that maybe he does like him anyway.

The following Monday, Bokuto can’t take it anymore. When grandma Hanako-san tells him that her grandson seems to be just slightly better, Bokuto starts feeling worse. He wants to cry, he wants to stop feeling like something is wrong with him. And that’s when he gives up. “There’s something I need to tell you. I know that it’s not your place to listen to my problems, but I can’t talk to my friends about it, and you’re probably the only person who can understand me” he starts saying while he supervises his rice as it cooks. There’s compassion, and also a hint of worry, in the woman’s eyes when she looks at him and nods, waiting in silence for him to talk.

Should he do it? Should he really talk to her about his own crisis? He sighs, then he breaks down. “I think I can understand better than anyone what your grandson is going through, because I’m going through the same. I’m really starting to think that I’m gay too, and there’s this friend of mine who is definitely straight, but I think I might like him quite a lot. I don’t know what to do” he finally confesses. He breaks down, telling her everything he has never told anyone before. His words are little more than a whisper, because he doesn’t want anyone else to listen, but he leans a little towards grandma Hanako-san in order to make sure that at least she can hear him.

Bokuto barely manages not to cry, when the woman hugs him in front of everyone. She tries to comfort him, but she doesn’t know how to help him and he’s well aware of it. After all, she would have already helped her own grandson if she’d known how. Just talking about it, however, makes Bokuto feel slightly better. This means that from now on he won’t have to bear this burden alone. Talking to grandma Hanako-san, moreover, also brings him information regarding how the woman’s grandson is doing. Bokuto doesn’t know him, but he knows that the two of them are basically in the same boat. Meaning that if the other boy manages to solve his own problems somehow, there’s hope for Bokuto to get there too at some point.

After his class is over, he can’t wait to go home, but the woman doesn’t let him. She tells him that he needs to be with someone who can listen to his problems, so she skips her own class and takes him out for dinner. He isn’t sure in the beginning, he doesn’t want to scramble her plans for the evening, and he’s not even certain if he feels like opening up more than he already has, but after a while he accepts and he ends up being glad about it.

During the entire dinner she lets him talk about himself. He tells her a little more about the friend he thinks he might like, but without saying anything more specific. He just says that he goes to a different school but they’re really good friends, even though on the court they’re full-on rivals. He also tells her that he knows his friend is straight because at some point they liked the same girl, and he’s pretty sure his friend still likes her. He doesn’t mention, however, that the girl in question is Kumiko-chan. It’s not important for the end result, after all. He also mentions the comments that said friend makes about other girls, remembering hearing Kuroo talk about Shimizu from Karasuno at training camp.

She lets him unload for a while, without interrupting him and only giving him reactions of understanding after he’s finished. Then it’s the woman’s turn to say something, and only after making sure that he’s finished speaking she talks a little more about her grandson. That’s when Bokuto finds out that the boy’s name is Tetsu, which is a pretty common name since it’s short for many longer ones. He also finds out that grandma Hanako-san is the family member this Tetsu is the closest to. Now that he knows the boy’s name, however, he can’t stop a shiver from running down his spine every time the woman mentions her _Tetsu-chan_. That name, after all, reminds him of someone he’d love to stop thinking about. He really hates people with common names!

***

After that first time talking about his own troubles, Fukurodani’s captain feels a little less concerned for his own well-being. Three weeks have passed since the day he confessed to grandma Hanako-san that he might be gay, and he has to admit that he’s starting to feel lighter now. He’s still unhappy, but now he knows that the woman is by his side for the ride. And, even though in a very indirect way, her grandson is too.

And that’s exactly what’s on his mind while walking from the subway station to cooking school on a Thursday afternoon. He’s wondering if that Tetsu guy has been able to find some peace, and he’s waiting to hear grandma Hanako-san’s updates on her grandson’s situation. At the same time, he’s a little concerned about having to talk to the woman about his own situation again, as he always does, but he’s also grateful that he has someone like her to listen to him. To be honest, the boy is conflicted, but he doesn’t let that confusion stop him. He wants to get better, he wants to stop feeling as helpless as he’s feeling right now, and that’s why he’s ready to do whatever it takes to heal.

When he gets to the cooking school, he’s surprised to find grandma Hanako-san waiting for him outside the building. That’s new, considering that she usually arrives with the other three old ladies when the class has already begun. At first, seeing her there makes him worry that something bad might have happened to her or to her grandson. When he gets closer, however, he can see that she’s smiling brightly at him. She looks happier than he’s ever seen her. The smile she’s sporting actually makes her look at least ten or fifteen years younger. Bokuto can’t even imagine what might have happened to change her mood so much, all of a sudden. She hasn’t smiled much since finding out that her grandson feels uncomfortable with who he is, after all.

Bokuto gets closer to greet her, and she hugs him, pulling him down in order to kiss his cheeks, considering that he’s way taller than her. It’s the first time she acts this way with him, and the boy finds himself wondering why once again. Before he can even ask what’s happening, when he’s barely had time to say hello, the woman catches his attention with her words. “I found the solution to all of our problems. Both you and Tetsu-chan are thinking about boys who like girls, and you need to stop that if you want to be happy. Now, the two of you have so much in common, I’m pretty sure you’ll be a great match. That’s why I decided that the two of you are going on a date!” the woman says with determination, appearing very proud of her great idea.

All the air gets knocked out of Bokuto’s lungs. Has he heard correctly? Is she really trying to set him up on a date with her grandson? In a second, his face goes from its normal color to bright red, and all of a sudden breathing seems to be a lot harder than it used to be. Is it just him, or has the temperature risen a little too much? He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. He can’t even begin to think about what to say, actually. Can he really go on a date with some boy he’s never even met before? How awkward will it be? Well, the other boy will be going out on a date organized by his own grandmother, and that in itself should be embarrassing enough to decide that not showing up on said date might be the most appropriate reaction. Is Bokuto going to risk that? Also, is he actually okay with trying something like that? He’s never been on a date with another guy, after all.

“A-a d-date?” he stutters when he’s finally able to speak again. “I mean, what should we even do on a date? We don’t know each other” he tries to say, hoping to receive more clarifications, something to justify accepting such a crazy idea. The woman is giggling at this point, making him feel very uncomfortable.

“Oh silly, you can talk about volleyball, of course. You’re both very much into that sport, after all” she says, and for a moment he starts feeling better. Yes, she’s right. They can always talk about volleyball, after all. And maybe, if they end up not feeling comfortable on that date, they can always act like two guys talking about sports. If they don’t feel like being a couple, they can still become friends. After all, Bokuto has never seen this Tetsu kid, so he has no idea if he’s the kind of boy that he might like or not.

Putting things in that perspective, the idea of going on that date doesn’t seem half bad. Actually, it seems to be a pretty interesting idea. He can get himself either a new boyfriend or a new friend out of that experience. He can finally take his mind away from that friend he doesn’t want to like. And of course he can finally find a little happiness, and maybe he can help grandma Hanako-san’s grandson to be happy as well. It can actually work. He doesn’t, however, give the woman a reply immediately. He only tells her that he needs to think about it, and that he’ll let her know at the end of class.

During the entire cooking class of the day, he feels uncomfortable, thinking over and over about the offer the old woman has made. He’s a little distracted, to the point that he almost burns his left hand on the stove, but luckily he ends up unharmed. Grandma Hanako-san is cheerful the entire time, humming a happy song while she gives him tips to better his dish. Bokuto imagines that she’s already thinking about the possibility of the two boys together and finally happy. She’s probably convinced that Bokuto will say yes. And that’s when another questions surfaces in his mind: has her grandson already agreed to the date? That’s exactly what he asks her while cleaning up his station at the end of class. “I haven’t told him yet, but I know my Tetsu-chan. He’ll say yes” she tries to reassure Bokuto.

Well, now he’s confused. The other boy hasn’t agreed yet, then. What if he doesn’t want to? Bokuto is sure that he’ll feel even worse if he agrees to go on that date and then he gets stood up because the other one doesn’t want to be involved in his grandmother’s schemes.

“Can you make sure that he agrees? I would like to try, but I don’t want to force him into something he doesn’t want to do” Bokuto finally answers, giving his okay to the blind date. The woman gives him a huge smile, then quickly hugs him again.

“That’s marvelous, Kou-chan. I will call you tomorrow to arrange the details. I have your number” she says. After that, she pats his cheek and walks him out of the classroom before the advanced level cooking class starts.

On his way home, Bokuto is lost in thought once again. Has he done something stupid, or is it really okay for him to try and go on a date with grandma Hanako-san’s grandson? Will he like the boy? Will the other even show up, at this point? He’s nervous, but at the same time he’s also excited. He’s going to try something new, after all, and he’s not sure how things are going to end. That’s why he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to get any sleep that night, thinking about the entire situation over and over again.

The following day, at school, he’s tense and he can’t concentrate on anything. Even during volleyball practice Akaashi has to call his name several times to get him back to the present. Only in the evening, however, he receives a phone call from grandma Hanako-san. She informs him that her grandson agreed on going out on a date with him, and that she’s going to organize everything. She has already chosen a place, apparently, and also a day and time. Bokuto doesn’t have any volleyball practice on Sunday afternoon, so that’s when she set the date for. Bokuto can barely breathe when she tells him: in two days he’s going on a date with a boy for the first time. And it’s going to be a blind date too! It has so much potential for disaster, but at the same time he also wants to be an optimist about it.

He agrees to everything the woman tells him, and he confirms that he’ll be meeting Tetsu on Sunday afternoon.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally date day!  
> Thank you all for reading this far. Your feedback is always appreciated. :)

Now that the entire date situation feels more real, Bokuto has an even harder time concentrating on anything he does. He doesn’t sleep on Friday night, and Saturday he can’t hit a single spike at volleyball practice. The coach even ends up benching him for most of the time, hoping that watching the others practice without him can help him get his head back in the game. But it’s pointless and also hopeless, because he can’t seem to get the thought of that date out of his mind. He is curious to finally meet this person he’s heard so much about for a long time now, and he hopes that Tetsu will be eager to meet him as well. At the same time, however, he has to admit that he’s a little scared too. Grandma Hanako-san has told him a lot about her grandson and what he’s going through. Does it mean that she’s told her grandson about Bokuto too? He supposes that that’s the case. And he’s not sure about how he’s going to react in front of a stranger who knows his deepest and darkest secrets.

On Saturday night he lies awake in his bed until 3 am, only managing to get a few hours of sleep before getting up early in the morning. That’s definitely not enough for an energetic person like him, who needs to sleep a lot in order to be active the entire day. He just hopes that it won’t show on his date, because he really doesn’t want to leave a bad first impression on someone who probably already has a very inaccurate idea of how he is. That’s the reason why, after lunch, he makes the stupid mistake of drinking a cup of coffee. He usually stays as far away as possible from that kind of stuff, because he’s too hyperactive on his own, but this is an emergency and he really needs the caffeine to feel like himself again.

The result of that, however, is not what he expected. When he leaves the house to get to his date, he feels on edge, and that’s not a good thing for someone like him. It’s like he can’t manage to stay still even if he tries. He bounces his legs the entire subway ride from home to the place where he’s supposed to meet Tetsu. Then he gets off the subway at the same station he uses when he goes to cooking school, and he starts jogging towards the location where the date will be taking place. He’s not late, but he can’t just walk there, because he needs to put all of his energies to good use.

In the end, he gets there a few minutes early. Okay, maybe even a little too early, to be honest. They’re supposed to meet at 5 pm, but it’s only 4:40 pm when he gets there. The place that grandma Hanako-san has chosen for their date is a café located down the street from their cooking school. It’s a place Bokuto knows well enough, even though he hasn’t been inside very often. But he walks by the entrance every time he goes to class, so he at least knows very well where it’s located.

At first, being so early, he decides to burn a little more energy by pacing back and forth, walking up to the entrance and then turning back and going to the end of the street, only to start all over again. He does it three times, and only then he decides to stop. He doesn’t want to be too sweaty when he gets inside the café, after all. It would leave a very bad impression of him, and that’s something he doesn’t want. He doesn’t want to appear as a messy person on the first date, even though he actually is a messy person every day of his life.

When he decides it’s time to stop pacing, he walks towards the entrance and he finally reaches the door. He puts his hand on the glass door, ready to open it, when his eyes fall on someone leaning against the counter, drinking from a glass that seems to be containing water and chatting with the girl behind the bar. And the person he sees there is Kuroo. He can see his friend smile at the girl, and for a second there Bokuto wonders if his friend is flirting with her. Then, however, realization hits him. _Kuroo_ is there. What the hell is he doing in a place so far from both his house and his school? Of all the places in the world, why has he chosen that one?

From the glass door, Bokuto can see his friend smirk at the barista, and the girl start giggling. Now he can see for sure that Kuroo is hitting on her, and that’s the last thing he ever wants to see. He actually feels a weird sensation in his stomach when the full meaning of what he’s seeing sinks in. Oh no, he can’t walk past that door and listen to Kuroo flirting with a girl. No thanks. Moreover, he’s there to meet a boy on a date, and that’s something he really doesn’t want Kuroo to see. He’s still coming to terms himself with the idea of being into boys, and he really isn’t ready for his friends to find out. Especially that one friend he thinks he might like a little too much.

Panic hits him, and instead of opening the door and entering the café, Bokuto runs away. He doesn’t even look back on what he’s leaving behind, he just runs to the subway station. Only when he’s there he stops to catch his breath, his heart pounding in his chest to the point that it almost hurts. He feels nauseous. He wants to go on that date, he really does, but at the same time he’s determined not to set foot inside that place while Kuroo is there as well. It would be too embarrassing for him, and he’s not sure if he can survive such a situation. Because if he goes in there he needs to talk to Kuroo, he of course can’t ignore his friend when meeting him by chance like that, and he can’t even imagine how uncomfortable it would be to see grandma Hanako-san’s grandson arrive while he’s with Kuroo. His friend would want an explanation, leaving Bokuto with a difficult decision to make. He can either embarrass himself more, introducing the boy to Kuroo as his date, or start the date with the wrong foot, introducing the boy as a friend and risking to ruin the whole thing. And what if this Tetsu is actually ugly? Then he won’t be able to look at him while Kuroo is there.

Oh no, entering that café while Kuroo is there would create too many problems, and none of them has a solution. At least not one he can think of right on the spot. For a moment, while entering the subway station to make his way back home, he wonders about calling Akaashi to ask him for a favor. Maybe he can give Kuroo’s phone number to his best friend, and Akaashi can call him with an excuse, in order to get him out of there. But that can’t really work either, because Kuroo isn’t stupid and he’ll easily realize that Akaashi is pulling him out of there for absolutely no good reason. In addition to that, asking Akaashi for a favor like that will mean telling the truth about his situation to his best friend, otherwise the setter would never agree to do it, and Bokuto is still not ready to talk to him about what he’s going though at the moment. To be honest, he’s not even sure he’ll ever be ready to tell him.

In the end, he takes the coward way out and just flees. He’s ashamed of himself, while riding the subway home, but there is nothing else that he can do about it. He had a shot at a possibly good date, and he’s blown it. He just hopes that he’s not ruined everything with his actions, even though he’s pretty sure he has.

***

The following day is a Monday, and Mondays always mean cooking class. He’s a little nervous while starting to setup his station when he gets there. He’s acting so out of character that Hiro-san even points out a couple of times that he’s taken out the wrong tools. The recipe of the day is meat, so he sure won’t need the six spoons he’s lined up at the center of his working station. Yes, his mind is definitely elsewhere. Even Kumiko-chan notices that he’s not entirely there, and she takes pity on him to the point that she even says hello to Bokuto when he, as always, greets her while being ready to get ignored.

They’re in the middle of the class when the four grandmothers enter the room and go to sit by some of the beginners as they always do. Bokuto doesn’t even have to raise his head and look to know that grandma Hanako-san is heading his way. When she greets him, the tone of her voice is enough to perceive her disappointment. Bokuto takes a deep breath, bracing himself for the lecture he’s sure he’s about to receive.

“He was really looking forward to your date, you know? I can’t believe you stood him up like that!” the woman begins to say, and Bokuto starts feeling even more guilty than he already was. Of course he’s only been thinking about himself the entire time, and not even once he worried about what his date was going to think about that situation. Maybe Tetsu would have preferred to be introduced to Kuroo, deciding perhaps to go elsewhere for their date? Now he’s starting to think of other possible ways he could have handled the situation.

“I’m sorry grandma, I really am!” Bokuto apologizes, and that’s true. He really is sorry for what he’s done. And the woman can probably feel it too, because she gently smiles at him.

“What happened, Kou-chan?” she asks him, her voice nothing more than a whisper. He takes a deep breath before thinking about something to tell her. He doesn’t want to mention Kuroo, because he’s actually ashamed of the way he’s handled the situation. He knows that’s not an excusable reason to ditch someone like that. That’s why he decides to lie instead.

The problem with lying, however, is that Bokuto is not good at doing it. He can omit parts of the truth, but outright lying? Not his forte. “I got sick yesterday. I think it’s something I ate for lunch, because I’ve been sick most of the afternoon. And I wanted to call you, but at the moment I was feeling so bad that it didn’t even cross my mind” he explains. Well, at least the last part is true: he was feeling so bad that the thought of calling grandma Hanako-san didn’t even occur to him. He would have been less of an ass if he’d called her immediately to tell her any kind of excuse for not going. At least she could have warned her grandson not to bother going, instead of leaving him there alone waiting for someone who wasn’t going to show.

Lying about being sick, however, makes Bokuto feel nervous. He’s afraid that the woman would see right through his lie and call him out on it. He’s not sure if she’s bought it or not, but after a few seconds of silence a worried expression appears on the woman’s face.

“Oh Kou-chan, I’m so sorry! Don’t worry, I’ll talk to Tetsu-chan to let him know what’s happened. Are you feeling okay now?” she finally speaks again, and Bokuto takes a deep breath, not believing his luck. He’s managed to fool her, pressing on her grandmother instincts that probably tell her that she needs to care for a sick kid. He feels incredibly guilty for it too, but he also realizes that he can’t admit out loud how much he’s screwed up, so he has to live with that guilt and just hope that things will get better the next time.

“I’m fine, I just had to skip dinner, that’s all” he keeps lying, but after that, that topic of conversation is over and he can ask the woman something that’s been bugging him since the moment he fled the afternoon before. “Grandma, do you think that Tetsu will be okay with planning another date? I’m ready whenever he wants, I just want to prove how sorry I am for what happened yesterday” Bokuto then asks. After all, he likes the idea of planning another date. In the beginning it took him some time to wrap his head around the idea of going on a date with the old woman’s grandson, but now that he’s finally okay with it, he really wants to make it work. Because okay, maybe it’ll come out that they’re not made for each other, but he still wants to meet the boy, because Tetsu seems like someone he’d be happy to know, and he’s pretty sure they’ll get along just fine.

The woman smiles at him, brightening when she hears that he’d like to give dating another try. “Of course my dear, leave it all to me. What about dinner this time? Let’s say, tomorrow?” she suggests, and Bokuto has to take a deep breath to slow down his heart rate. Dinner. _Tomorrow_. This looks like a more serious kind of date, and it’s so soon. But whatever, he’s the one who suggested to try again, so he can’t back down. They can have dinner together, talk about volleyball and stuff, and get to know each other.

“Sure. Where?” Bokuto agrees. “Leave it all to me. I will make reservations and then I’ll let you know” grandma Hanako-san replies. The boy isn’t really worried, but he’s a little tense nonetheless. Part of him still can’t believe what he’s doing, after all.

***

Later that evening, Bokuto receives a call from grandma Hanako-san, who confirms that her grandson has agreed to dinner tomorrow. His heart speeds up again when he realizes that it’s real, that he’s actually going to meet the boy this time, and sit down with him for the entire length of a meal. He’d be lying if he said that he’s not nervous, but at the same time he’s excited as well. Finally he can go on a date with someone he can talk about volleyball to. With Kumiko-chan, he always talked about his love for volleyball, but she never seemed to completely understand what he was feeling. Maybe with this boy things will be different. Part of him really can’t wait for it to be tomorrow night already.

On Tuesday morning, at school, Bokuto is restless. He keeps jumping around, and he can’t even sit still while in class. Komi laughs out loud, when a teacher sends him to the principal’s office for disturbing the entire duration of the class. During breaks, he doesn’t look for Akaashi, which is not normal, and that’s why the setter is the one who goes looking for him. Especially after hearing from Komi what happened in class. He finds Bokuto sitting alone in a corner outside the main building of the school, his back against the wall and eyes glued to the ground.

“Bokuto-san? What are you doing?” Akaashi asks while approaching his senpai. Bokuto doesn’t even acknowledge his presence until the setter is standing right in front of him, and the boy’s legs are in his field of vision. He would love to receive some good words of advice from Akaashi, who always seems to know everything about everything. He doesn’t want, however, to tell his best friend about his current situation. He still doesn’t feel ready, especially considering that he still doesn’t know how the date is going to turn out. Maybe they’re going to end up just friends, and all of his worries will have been for nothing. He really shouldn’t bother Akaashi with something like that. At the same time, however, he would love to be comforted by his friend. That’s why he decides to meet the situation halfway.

Bokuto raises a hand to grab Akaashi by the blue tie around his neck, part of the Fukurodani school uniform, and pulls his friend down. The younger boy can only follow his movements, if he doesn’t want to end up chocked to death. Taking the hint, Akaashi sighs and sits down beside Bokuto. “What’s wrong, Bokuto-san?” he tries to ask, eyes piercing through Bokuto as if trying to look directly at what’s inside his head. The volleyball team captain sighs, then he hugs his legs and puts his head to rest on his knees, in a position that has him turned to the side so that he can look at Akaashi.

“Have you ever been on a blind date?” he asks out of nowhere. He can see Akaashi’s reaction pretty clearly from there. His friend blinks a couple of times, mouth slightly open in surprise. More than a year as Bokuto’s best friend now, and he still can be taken aback by Bokuto’s weird questions. This time, however, it’s not a random question like the many others he’s asked in the past. This time he really has a reason for asking that question, and the reason is that he needs to know how to act in the situations he’s finding himself into.

“Come again?” the setter asks, probably not sure that he understood correctly. He frowns a little when Bokuto repeats the question using the exact same words, just to prove that he has no intention of changing the subject of conversation. This is not just one thing he’s asking because the question is passing through his mind at the moment, like that time he asked Akaashi if he used to pick his nose as a child. This time his eyes are intense, and they’re staring right at Akaashi, waiting to receive an answer from him.

“I’ve never been on a date, period” Akaashi finally admits. He doesn’t seem to be really bothered by his answer, as his expression remains calm when he talks. That in itself is strange, because most of the boys their age would never admit that they’ve never been on a date without feeling at least a little ashamed. That answer, however, is enough to peak Bokuto’s attention. His head snaps up, and he’s now turning almost entirely towards Akaashi.

“Seriously? Not even one?” he asks, curious to hear his friend’s reply. The setter only shakes his head, a polite smile on his face. Well, that’s something he wasn’t expecting. Akaashi has always been some kind of dream guy. In the short time they’ve been friends, Bokuto has seen both girls and boys pine desperately after him. So why has Akaashi never been on a date before?

“Exactly. I’m not interested in dating anyone at the moment” the boy states, and Bokuto doesn’t understand his reasons. Knowing Akaashi, he would be the perfect boyfriend for whoever turns out to be the lucky person he likes. Hearing that Akaashi doesn’t want to date is enough to take Bokuto’s mind off of what he was thinking in the beginning. The conversation now drifts towards Akaashi and his lack of desire to date someone. Something that Bokuto can’t understand even if he tries, and he tells his best friend as much.

Talking about Akaashi, who probably feels ambushed by the other’s personal questions, is enough to calm Bokuto down completely. Now he’s not thinking about his date anymore. He’s just chatting with his friend, and trying to figure out what kind of person Akaashi would want to date; which appears to be absolutely no one, as Akaashi is not interested in having any kind of relationship while in high school. Bokuto would like to smash his head against the wall for saying that, but he doesn’t. He’s actually grateful to the boy, because even though his friend doesn’t know what he’s done, he has helped Bokuto a lot. Now he feels ready to go on his date, because just thinking that he might like grandma Hanako-san’s grandson is enough to put him in a very good mood.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, date day! Again! Will they meet this time?  
> So, today is my birthday and I'm turning _*obnoxious keysmash*_ , but since I don't like celebrating, it only seems fitting that this particular chapter is coming out today.  
> Additional warnings for this chapter: light angst  
> Enjoy! ^_^

In the evening, he dresses with his best clothes. He wears a t-shirt with a pun about owls on it, and a pair of worn-out jeans. He’s supposed to meet Tetsu at the restaurant where his cooking school teacher, Fujiko-sensei, works as a chef on the days she’s not teaching. They have a table for two, reservation under the name _Hanako_. This time, in order to avoid any problems like the one that occurred last time, he decides to get there almost an hour early. He scopes the place out, looking through every window in order to make sure that there’s no one he knows in sight. When he’s satisfied with the result, he enters the restaurant and a waitress leads him to a nice table by one of the windows. The window is large, but it has partially open curtains, so not the entire table is visible from the outside, just a portion of it. This will give him a little privacy to enjoy his date with Tetsu without being under the constant stare of passers-by.

He has arrived so early that he soon finds himself with a lot of time to kill. He’s bored, so he plays with his phone for a little while. Then, when he’s tired of that too, he starts looking around, checking out the other patrons. The first thing he notices is that, other than a family with children, there’s basically just couples there. And most of them are pretty young as well. Some of them, actually, seem to be high school students, or college students at best. If there are so many young people, it means that the restaurant is good and the prices are fair. Well, that’s good, considering that he doesn’t have much money. He doesn’t even know if he’s supposed to pay for dinner or if they should split the check at the end of the meal. He’s learned a few things while dating Kumiko-can, but will it be the same while dating a boy?

Thoughts keep flooding his mind while he waits for Tetsu to arrive. They’re supposed to meet at 8 pm, but soon 8 arrive and pass, and Bokuto is still sitting alone at the table. His trepidation, his enthusiasm, are starting to disappear, and now worry is finding its way out. Has he been stood up? Is Tetsu taking revenge for what happened on Sunday? Bokuto feels humiliated, and he’s losing his appetite completely. What is he supposed to do? He takes out his phone once again, and he’s about to call grandma Hanako-san, but he changes his mind before clicking on the call button. What is he even supposed to tell her? He doesn’t want to sound pathetic, but he knows that he’ll sound exactly that way if he calls her now.

Maybe he had it coming, because of the way be ran away from their date on Sunday. Maybe Tetsu was already there, and saw him run away. If the other boy knows that he’s lied, it would make sense for him not to go to their second attempt at a date. Is this really what’s happening? Bokuto clenches his fists while looking at the clock hanging from the wall on the other side of the room. It says that it’s almost 9 pm, and at this point there is no way that Tetsu is going to show up anymore.

Without saying a word, Bokuto stands up and leaves the restaurant without even saying goodbye to Fujiko-sensei. He needs to clear his head right now. His eyes are stinging while he walks towards the subway station.

***

The following day, Bokuto is in his highly dejected mood the entire time. He wakes up without any energy, just rolling over in his bed and refusing to get up. His mother has to physically push him off the bed before he reluctantly stands up and walks to the bathroom. His mind his elsewhere during his subway ride to school, to the point that he almost misses his stop. In class, he doesn’t even try to listen to his teachers, he just stares out of the window and sighs. The people who know him the most are already getting worried by the time they head outside the main building to find a spot for lunch. Once again, Bokuto doesn’t go looking for Akaashi to eat together, so Akaashi goes looking for him. This time, however, Bokuto hides when he sees his best friend walking in his direction, and soon enough he feels like he’s becoming one with a very nice secluded spot he’s found behind the boys basketball team’s gymnasium. He skips lunch, and after classes are over he even thinks about skipping volleyball practice.

He decides on going to volleyball after all, but he can’t connect a single spike during the entire practice. His coach and managers are about to pull entire locks of hair out of their heads, and they keep yelling at him, but Bokuto can see for his own that he’s completely useless on the court. That makes him feel even worse, because he loves being the best at volleyball, and not being able to be his regular awesome self is depressing. Akaashi tries one of his usual tactics to get him back on track, and when he fails the rest of the team starts whispering behind Bokuto’s back. Maybe they’re concerned, or maybe they can’t take it anymore. After all it never takes him much to get like that. Are they going to kick him off the team now?

His train of thoughts keeps getting worse and worse. And it’s not even a little better when he wakes up un Thursday morning, considering that in the evening he’ll have his cooking class, meaning that he’ll see grandma Hanako-san. What is she going to tell him about the date? Is she going to take her grandson’s side? Will she be mad at Bokuto, telling him that he deserved being stood up because of the crap he pulled on Sunday? It’s useless to say that his day at school and at volleyball practice is an exact repeat of what happened Wednesday, with the addition that Bokuto gets more and more nervous the more volleyball practice approaches its end.

When practice is over and Bokuto has finished taking a shower, he leaves school to get to the closest subway station. His destination is cooking school, as it always is on Thursdays. Usually he walks to the station with Akaashi, and once they get there they take two separate subway lines going in different directions. This time, however, he doesn’t wait for his friend, and he starts walking on his own. Soon Akaashi jogs in order to catch up with him, and he asks if he can join Bokuto. The wing spiker is a little edgy, but he doesn’t deny his friend’s request, he just shrugs and keeps walking slightly faster. Akaashi has to quicken his pace in order to keep up with him without getting left behind.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you?” Akaashi asks, but Bokuto’s only reply is a shrug. He can hear Akaashi take a deep breath, probably doing his best to keep his patience from abandoning him completely. Bokuto is aware of the fact that his best friend is most likely a saint for putting up with him and his dreadful mood swings. At the moment, however, he doesn’t care. Actually, he would prefer for Akaashi to leave him alone.

“I’m fine. Totally fine” Bokuto lies, and of course it doesn’t take someone who knows him inside and out to realize that he’s not telling the truth. From the corner of his eye he can see Akaashi pinch his nose and close his eyes. Knowing the boy, he’s probably counting to ten in his mind before doing something he’d regret. Apparently, that’s a thing he often has to do when Bokuto is at his worse. Fukurodani’s captain just ignores his setter and keeps walking, until Akaashi’s hand grabs his arm, stopping him in his track. That’s when he turns towards his best friend, ready to yell that he wants to be left alone, but his intentions disappear when he notices the worried look on Akaashi’s face.

“Look, I don’t want to intrude, but I want to help you. Can you help me understand what happened to you?” Akaashi tries again, his voice surprisingly calm. Bokuto averts his gaze, and after a couple of seconds he resumes walking. This time, however, he’s going slower, to allow Akaashi to follow him more easily.

“The other day you asked me about going on a blind date. Is it because you actually had a blind date?” Akaashi inquires. Bokuto doesn’t answer, but he feels his face blush. Even though he’s not using any words, his body is still answering his friend’s questions. After a moment to think about his next question, Akaashi keeps going on with his assumptions. “Okay, so you went on a blind date. Did something bad happen? Didn’t she like you?” this time, the setter’s voice is more tentative. He’s clearly walking on eggshells around Bokuto, due to his current condition.

Of course Bokuto ignores the fact that Akaashi just spoke of his date as a _she_ , because he has no intention of explaining to his best friend that he was supposed to go out with a _he_ to begin with. Akaashi’s words hurt him, because is that really what his best friend can assume about him just by looking at him? That he went out with someone and that said person didn’t like him back? If Bokuto wants to be honest, however, the truth is even worse, because his date hasn’t even given him the benefit of the doubt. He’s not even been tested to see if he was worth a second date.

Bokuto clenches his fists with rage and stops abruptly, turning around to face Akaashi. “I’ve been stood up, okay? Happy now?” he yells, before storming away. At first, Akaashi remains exactly where he is, stunned by the revelation. Then, when Bokuto is already inside the subway station and walking towards the platform he needs to go to, his best friend catches up with him once more. They avoid looking at each other, and the moment feels pretty awkward.

“I’m sorry” Akaashi starts to say. “You wanna talk about it?” he tries again. But Bokuto just shakes his head in silence, eyes glued to the floor.

“I’d rather not. It was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. And now I have to go to cooking school and tell a nice old lady that she sucks at matchmaking. Either that, or she just tried to set me up with an asshole who can really hold a grudge” Bokuto states. Truth is that he’d love to talk about it, and take the load off his chest, but he’s not sure he’ll ever manage to bring himself to tell Akaashi the entire story. That, to be honest, he prefers to keep to himself. He’s not ready to face Akaashi’s reactions to him being gay and accepting to go on a blind date with some old woman’s grandson in order to stop thinking about Kuroo. Akaashi’s head might explode for much less than that.

“Will you feel better if I accompany you to your cooking class? So you don’t have to face the situation alone” Akaashi offers. At this point Bokuto could easily turn around and hug him with enough emphasis to break most of his bones, but he settles for just smiling at his best friend. What will he even do without Akaashi? That’s how the two of them take the subway together, and after getting off at the same station they start walking towards Bokuto’s cooking school. Since Akaashi is with him, Bokuto feels way better than he did before, but he still isn’t entirely well.

“Oh, now that I think about it, you’re about to meet my ex-girlfriend as well” Bokuto realizes out loud, grinning towards Akaashi. When he was dating Kumiko-chan he wasn’t sure if he wanted Akaashi to meet her. Maybe he was afraid she’d be charmed by Akaashi’s beauty? Now, however, he has to admit that he’s pretty curious to see what his best friend has to say about her. Akaashi doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in meeting the girl, but he gives his captain a polite smile, just to acknowledge that he heard what he said. “I bet you’ll recognize her immediately too. She’s like the youngest there, but if you have doubts about that too, then she’s the one who doesn’t talk to me” Bokuto adds, and not even Akaashi can hide a small chuckle at that. He still hasn’t found a way to make up with Kumiko-chan, but at the moment he has bigger fish to fry than finding a way to make her forgive him for not liking her back.

When the two of them arrive outside the building, some of the other attendees are already there, chatting among each other before entering. Bokuto immediately spots Hiro-san smoking a cigarette and calls his name, waving in his direction. Then he grabs Akaashi by an arm and drags him towards the man he wants him to meet. They spend a few minutes talking about nothing at all, and during that time Bokuto starts feeling way more at ease. That is until Hiro-san notices something.

“Don’t turn around Koutarou-kun, but a certain someone is looking this way and she seems ready to stab you in the back” the man comments, an amused smirk on his face. Hiro-san has always found Bokuto and Kumiko-chan’s situation to be incredibly entertaining, after all. Bokuto sighs when he hears the other’s words, while Akaashi turns around to discreetly take a look at the girl.

“She’s really pretty, I have to admit. And she definitely hates you, Bokuto-san” Akaashi comments, his words followed by Bokuto’s whiny “’Kaaaaaashiiiiii” that makes Hiro-san laugh out loud. Soon, however, the rest of the attendees arrive, and Hiro-san excuses himself to go greet a couple of other men around his age he’s befriended during the past few months.

When the two of them don’t have anyone else around who might hear, Akaashi takes a look at each one of the persons around. “So, which one is the lady who tried to set you up on a blind date?” the setter asks. If he’s curious to know or if he just thinks that Bokuto wants to talk about it, that’s impossible to understand. Akaashi, after all, can easily strip his face of any expression, and it’s annoying because when he does that it’s impossible for Bokuto to understand what he’s thinking.

“She’s not here. She’s really good at cooking, you know, so she’s not in my class. She just arrives during class to help those who struggle” Bokuto explains, avoiding mentioning the fact that she usually has to help him because he struggles a lot. Thinking about it, actually, that’s not even entirely true anymore. He still has doubts sometimes, and when he’s cooking with his mind elsewhere he ends up making a mess, but he’s mostly capable to hold his own now. It usually takes him a while to study a recipe, but after he understands how it works, then he can easily reproduce it, if his head is actually concentrated on what he’s doing.

It seems like Akaashi has something else to say, but that’s exactly when their sensei arrives. She’s walking fast because she’s late. She usually opens the kitchen at least fifteen minutes before the starting time of their class, so that they can have enough time to setup their stations before they begin. This time, however, it’s already 6 pm when she gets there, and she immediately invites everyone inside. “This is my cue. Will you be okay now?” Akaashi inquires, a little concerned frown barely visible on his face.

Bokuto thanks him with a huge smile, one of those smiles that can brighten an entire room. “I’ll be fine now. Thank you Akaashi!” he declares, and only then the two of them say goodbye by stating that they’ll be seeing each other in the morning, at school.

When the cooking class of the day starts, Bokuto is once again in a good mood. He’s spent a couple of utterly crappy days, but luckily Akaashi has been able to make him smile once again, restoring his confidence the same way he always manages to do when Bokuto becomes dejected during a match. The boy is smiling when he starts cooking, and that smile doesn’t falter even when he catches Kumiko-chan’s killer gaze for a moment. When the door opens and the four grandmothers enter the classroom greeting the sensei as they always do, however, something starts feeling a little different. The smile dies on his lips, and without even thinking about what he’s doing, he starts avoiding grandma Hanako-san’s gaze. He doesn’t take his eyes off the food he’s cooking when she goes to sit beside him. He does his best to keep his voice friendly when he greets her, though.

“He’s very sorry, Kou-chan” is the first thing the woman says. Bokuto uses a spatula to uselessly move around the content of the frying pan in front of him, just to keep himself occupied and to give himself a reason not to look at the old lady.

He doesn’t want to be rude with her, but at the same time he feels the need to know what happened. “Just tell me one thing: is it because I bailed last time? Is it payback?” he ends up asking, a melancholic tone in his voice. He barely manages to finish speaking that grandma Hanako-san immediately puts a hand on his arm.

“Oh no, dear, it’s nothing like that. He really wanted to meet you, I know that for sure” she quickly says. That’s when Bokuto raises his gaze from the frying pan and finally looks her in the eye.

He would love to believe that what she’s saying is true. After talking about Tetsu for so long, it almost feels like they already know each other, so it shouldn’t be too awkward to meet. The first time they scheduled a date, Bokuto had an incredibly valid reason to bail, and even with that he still lied and created an even more convincing one. What’s Tetsu’s excuse know? He needs to know what happened in order to decide how he should react to the situation.

“Then why?” he asks. He doesn’t want his voice to come out whiny, but that’s exactly what happens anyway. His lower lip is also trembling a little, and he has to take a very deep breath to keep himself from going back to that same state he’s been in for the past couple of days. Especially because now he doesn’t have Akaashi with him to help him feel better.

Bokuto watches the woman breathe slowly, while she fidgets with a hem of a dishcloth, looking uncomfortable. “Do you remember what I told you about the friend he likes? The one who has a girlfriend?” she starts to say, and Bokuto slowly nods, to let her know that she can go on. “Well, Tetsu-chan saw him while he was coming to meet you. Apparently, odds wanted that he was on a date for dinner at the same restaurant. He just caught a glimpse of him through the window and fled. But the poor kid feels so bad about it” the woman explains.

After hearing those words, Bokuto finds himself chewing on his lower lip. He’s not sure of what to think at this point. Part of him wants to be mad, but deep down he knows that he can’t, because after all he did the exact same thing. Sure, he then came up with a different excuse, but he ran away after seeing the one he likes as well. This new piece of information, however, gives him something more to think about. They both like the idea of finally going on that date, but at the same time they both have someone else in mind; someone who apparently is ruining their chances of meeting, because both Kuroo and Tetsu’s friend have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. So maybe fate doesn’t want them to find each other after all? Are they destined to keep pining after people they can’t afford to like? It’s unfair, but maybe it’s also the way things are supposed to be.

Is it a sign that they should stop trying to meet? That’s the conclusion Bokuto reaches after hearing why Tetsu didn’t show up for their date. “I get it. I would have run as well” the boy says, without adding that he actually did it and then lied about it. He doesn’t say anything else, still lost in his own thoughts.

Grandma Hanako-san then clears her throat before talking again. “Well, third time’s a charm, so for the next time-“ she starts to say, but Bokuto stops her before she can even finish the sentence. He lifts the spatula he’s using and brings it in front of her face, to let her understand that she needs to stop talking.

“Actually, maybe fate is trying to tell us something, you know? Maybe it’s for the best that we weren’t able to meet? I don’t know, I guess, maybe it’s not meant to be” Bokuto explains, his mood starting to go down while he talks. After all he had doubts about dating grandma Hanako-san’s grandson when she first mentioned that possibility, but on second thought he was really happy about it. Now, however, he doesn’t know anymore. Since they keep missing each other, maybe they’re just not supposed to meet. Especially considering that they both bailed on their dates for the same reason, meaning that they both still have too many concerns regarding the boys they currently like. Dating, after all, is supposed to be a distraction for them, a way to get to know someone else and forget all about the person they can’t have. But if those two keep showing up every time they try to go on a date, how are they supposed to take their minds off them? 

The old lady nods, her eyes on the noodles that are currently cooking on the stove in front of them. “Are you saying that you don’t want to try again?” she asks.

Bokuto frowns at that. “Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe” he quickly babbles before trying to give a straight answer. “Not now, I guess?” he tries again. The woman takes a moment before she nods, accepting his decision. After all she can’t force him to go on that date if he doesn’t want to. Bokuto, however, hopes that she’ll not take his decision badly, and that she doesn’t suspect Bokuto having a low opinion of her grandson. On the contrary, Bokuto appreciates Tetsu, and that’s why he also hopes that the other boy will understand why he thinks it’s not the right time to try dating again. Maybe, after they both have more time to clear their minds, things between them will work good enough that they can actually meet for the first time without one of them running away because of personal issues.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. As always, thank you for reading so far and for the feedback you're giving me. I really love your appreciation.  
> I can't believe that we're past half of the story, and it feels so surreal because it's the first time in my life that I actually manage to post chapters so regularly. To be honest it's also the first time I post something after it's already completed, but whatever...  
> I hope you'll enjoy what's coming next.

The decision of not rescheduling the date with Tetsu hasn’t been an easy one to make, but Bokuto is sticking with it. He keeps on with his everyday life, and he holds on pretty well. Or at least well enough that even Akaashi doesn’t suspect anything being wrong with him. Granted, most of the time he’s faking, but once he starts playing volleyball he gets back to genuine happiness, and that’s what matters. For a few days everything works perfectly, with Bokuto going to school and playing volleyball as if nothing ever happened. Problems, however, start on Monday morning, while he’s riding the subway to school. His mind is elsewhere, nose buried behind the newest issue of _Monthly Volleyball_ , completely unaware of whatever is happening around him. This is the reason why he feels incredibly surprised when someone bumps into him, to the point that he even drops his magazine. He immediately bends down to pick it up, then he raises his head before standing up, landing his eyes on a boy who doesn’t seem to be much older than him.

“Are you okay? Sorry, I wasn’t looking” the boy says, a friendly smile on his face. Sure, he really seems to be sorry for bumping into him, but at the same time he gives out some kind of vibe that makes Bokuto think he’s not the kind of person to really be sorry for anything he does. For just a second, his heart skips a beat and he forgets how to speak. A moment later everything goes back to normal, and Bokuto realizes that he needs to say something.

“No worries, I’m fine” he states, smiling widely. The boy just nods in his direction, mouths another apology and just goes on to look for a better spot where to stand, since there are no available seats. Bokuto is left there, bewildered, because once again he felt something. It only happens in rare occasions, usually with Kuroo but sometimes with other guys too, but there are times when Bokuto can feel that kind of attraction that’s usually not there when he looks at boys.

Moments like this are the ones that first made him think that he might be gay, after all. Yet at the same time they’re still rare. Does it mean that he has a very specific type that he likes? Maybe he is simply attracted to people with that kind of confident grin on their faces. When he gets off the subway, Bokuto walks to school with both hands in his pockets, a frown on his face, thinking. His face actually seems to be twisted in a pained expression, that is exactly what happens every time he gets too reflective. This doubt is still strong on his mind, making him question himself once again. Sometimes he really wishes to be able to figure himself out more easily. Most of the other kids his age don’t have the same doubts he has, they already know who they are and what they like. He hates being forced to go through all of this trouble, especially when it’s taking away precious time he should be spending on volleyball. Qualifications to Nationals are getting closer and closer, after all, meaning that he needs to be in the best possible shape if he wants to show everyone that he’s the number one best ace in all of Japan.

The rest of the day goes by without any problems, even though sometimes Bokuto finds himself thinking about the collision he had in the morning on the subway. In the evening, when he goes to his cooking class, he is a little distracted, but he still tries his best not to burn anything he’s cooking. He’s getting pretty good, after all, and even though he doesn’t like cooking per se, he appreciates the idea of having another way to show off in front of people, to make others appreciate his talent. Grandma Hanako-san doesn’t really have any need to sit with him during classes, but she does it anyway, and the two of them keep chatting the entire time.

That Monday isn’t any different, even though they mostly talk about food, that is something they don’t usually do. Only fifteen minutes before the end of class, Bokuto asks the woman how her grandson is doing. She explains that sometimes she thinks he still hates himself, but he’s getting better at coping with it, because he’s mostly trying to keep his doubts and problems to himself. She explains that she’s worried about this, because he doesn’t talk to her as much as he did before. Talking about Tetsu seems to make her sad, therefore Bokuto ends up regretting mentioning the other boy at all. At the same time, however, he finds himself wondering if maybe things would be different if the two of them could really talk to each other without the boy’s grandmother as a go-between. Maybe they’d be able to really help each other. For a moment he’s about to ask grandma Hanako-san if she can set up another date, but he stops himself before speaking. Maybe he could ask for the boy’s phone number and they could just talk, but probably asking Tetsu’s grandmother for his number might come out as a little rude, or at least the other boy might see it that way.

He ends up just talking about something else for the remainder of the class, then he quickly hugs the old woman before leaving the building and going back home. The following days go on pretty much the same, and nothing changes during the cooking classes either. He doesn’t mention Tetsu to grandma Hanako-san, even though he’s curious to know how the other boy is doing. Talking about him, actually, really helps Bokuto feel a little better, probably because knowing that someone else is in his same situation makes him feel less alone. But he’s not an ass, he can see that Tetsu is a topic of conversation that seems to hurt the nice old woman, so he keeps his questions to himself. He’s grateful to grandma Hanako-san for all the help she’s given him, both to improve his cooking and as moral support in his crappy love life, so he would never bring up her grandson on purpose knowing that she doesn’t feel like talking about him.

Something changes, however, during the last weekend of training camp before qualifications for Nationals start. He’s tense, but he still gives his best on the court, showing everyone that he’s not someone people can easily mess up with. He wants the other schools to know that he’s going to defeat them all, if they manage to make it to the Spring Tournament; because their attendance might be uncertain, but Fukurodani is going there for sure. Bokuto will never accept otherwise.

On Sunday morning, when he wakes up to start the day of practice matches, Bokuto is cheerful. His mood changes, however, when he reaches the bathroom to wash his face, and finds that some other boys are already there. He can see both Konoha and Komi there, as well as a couple of first-years. He’s patiently waiting for his turn, when the door opens up again and Nekoma’s third-years get inside.

“You guys sure are slow, your time is up, it’s our turn now” Yaku states, making Bokuto frown. Only a few words are exchanged at this point, then the rest of Fukurodani leaves the bathroom, leaving Bokuto there with Yaku, Kai and of course Kuroo. Considering how many times he has even showered in the same room with them after a match, he feels like an idiot that he can’t even go on with his usual morning routine just because they’re there. After all it’s not like they’re looking at him or something.

Still, his heart rate quickens when his eyes accidentally fall on Kuroo. He can’t allow anyone to notice it, so he tries to be as quick as possible in leaving that bathroom. He does a poor job at styling his hair in front of the mirror, especially considering that he can see from the corner of an eye that Kuroo is now watching him while he does it. As soon as he’s done, Bokuto is ready to flee, but Kuroo’s hand on his arm stops him abruptly. “Wait, where do you think you’re going like this?” Nekoma’s captain asks, leaving him puzzled.

“What? Why?” he asks, trying to nonchalantly free his arm.

“You just butchered your hair. Are you sure you want everyone to see you like this?” Kuroo asks again. This time Bokuto really is perplexed, because he knows his friend is right, his hair sucks like that, but at the same time he is in a hurry, and he really needs to put as much distance as possible between himself and Kuroo before his heart decides to jump out of his mouth. He can always find another mirror somewhere else and fix his hair there.

Before he can even reply, however, Kuroo is pulling him forward, positioning Bokuto to face a mirror once again. Before Fukurodani’s captain can do anything to stop him, his friend is rummaging through his stuff, taking out a container of hair gel, and with a shit-eating grin on his face he’s putting some on his own hands. Bokuto finds it hard to swallow. What exactly is Kuroo trying to do? His mouth opens in shock the moment he feels Kuroo’s hands going through his hair, moving quickly while pulling up hair strands. Butterflies are flying around Bokuto’s stomach, when he takes a look at Kuroo through the mirror. His friend is standing right behind him, but his head is slightly tilted to the side, in order to take a better look at what he’s doing. That allows Bokuto to watch the concentrated expression on Kuroo’s face while he combs his hair, and the grin that his lips are forming while contemplating a job well done.

“All better now” his friend states, snapping Bokuto back to the present. He stops looking at Kuroo through the mirror and takes a look at himself. His hair looks perfect, the way it always is. He thanks his friend for helping, doing his best to smile at him, but he’s not sure the result is coming out the way he pictured it. As soon as possible Bokuto leaves the bathroom, and once he’s out the door he starts running as fast as he can, trying to put at least an entire hallway of distance between himself and Kuroo. He needs to calm down, to slow his heartbeat to a normal pace, before going out to the gymnasium for the day of practice. Leaning against a wall, he puts a hand on his heart and tries to take deep breaths.

He’s screwed. How can he ever stop having doubts about himself, if every time he thinks that maybe he’s not gay after all he ends up with butterflies in his stomach at the sight of Kuroo? Bokuto really wants to punch himself in the face now, so he does. It isn’t of any help, though, because he doesn’t feel any better, and all he gets out of it is that his cheekbone hurts. He realizes, however, that he really needs to do something about it. Because okay, maybe he’s really gay after all, but he refuses to like Kuroo, end of story. He needs to find someone else, he needs to start dating, in order to forget all about Kuroo. He’s never dated a boy before, considering how badly his previous attempts have ended, but at least he knows where to start.

On Monday, the moment grandma Hanako-san enters the kitchen and goes to sit next to him, Bokuto immediately tells her that he thinks he’s ready to try again with her grandson. She brightens up hearing his words, and requests that he leaves everything to her.

***

Considering the way the two previous attempts have ended, grandma Hanako-san doesn’t want to take any chances this time. “You two will have to see each other this time. That’s why it’s better if you meet here, after class” she informs Bokuto. Even though he’s nervous about meeting the boy in front of other people he knows, he agrees anyway. The rest of the class is going to find out about him anyway, at some point. They set up the date for Thursday, right after class. Bokuto is obviously tense during the days that precede the one of the date. When Thursday comes, he tries his best to keep calm. Reaching the cooking school building, however, he immediately finds out something that doesn’t help him feel any better.

Apparently, right before leaving on Monday, someone heard him talking to grandma Hanako-san, and now rumors about him are spreading. Basically everyone in his cooking class knows that he’s going out on a date with the grandson of one of the nice old ladies that always help them during class. Nobody is judging him for his choice, at least not to his face, except for Kumiko-chan. If looks could kill, he’d be dead the moment she glares in his direction. Probably she hasn’t taken his internal conflict in the best way. Bokuto feels a little guilty about it, even though technically it’s not his fault. He even tries to approach her, to find out what he can do to make it up to her.

“Is it true, then? Are you really gay?” the girl asks him when he tries to inquire if there is anything that he can do. He immediately starts feeling uncomfortable, chewing on the interior of his cheeks, looking for the right words to use.

“I think so, yeah” he whispers, feeling a little ashamed. The girl probably takes pity on him, because she gives him a hint of a smile.

“It wasn’t me, then. It was always you. After you broke up with me, I was sure that there was something else that I could have done to prevent it” she states. She’s clearly insecure, and Bokuto feels badly for feeding her insecurity even more. At the same time, however, on his defense he can say that he didn’t have any idea of being into boys at the time. It all happened very fast, and he couldn’t have predicted any of it. Kumiko-chan still isn’t happy about what she just found out, but she forgives him, at least with her words. Her eyes tell an entirely different story, but he does his best to ignore it. He needs to focus on himself now, after all. Two hours, just two hours of cooking, and then he’ll really meet Tetsu for the first time.

Considering that he’ll be going on a date after cooking class, Bokuto has chosen how to dress accordingly. He usually picks random clothes to wear at cooking school, sometimes he even wears his school uniform, but not today. Today he’s wearing his best pair of jeans and his favorite t-shirt, the one with a giant owl playing volleyball on it. Not the most refined clothes he possesses, but the ones he prefers for sure. If he wants to make a good impression on someone, that will be easier to accomplish while wearing those clothes. After all, who doesn’t like owls and volleyball? He already knows that Tetsu is very much into volleyball, so he’s pretty sure the other will like owls too and that he’ll just love his t-shirt. Therefore, he does his best to make sure that nothing gets past his apron, because he might kill himself if he ends up staining his best clothes right before a date.

Time seems to pass too slowly, almost as if class is going on for eight hours instead of two just to spite him. He keeps glancing in the direction of the clock on the wall behind Fujiko-sensei every five minutes, just to see how much longer it will be before the end of class. As the grandmothers enter the kitchen, he tenses up when grandma Hanako-san starts approaching him. She basically cooks for him, because he’s so distracted by thoughts of the date that’s waiting for him that he almost throws the rice in the trash and puts the empty rice box in the pot on the stove.

Then class is finally over, and Bokuto finds himself unable to breathe. He’s now aware that, the moment he steps out of the building, Tetsu will be waiting for him. The fact that everyone knows about it doesn’t help him at all. Many people, starting from Hiro-san, wish him good luck on the date while exiting the kitchen. Bokuto remains glued to the spot instead, until grandma Hanako-san is the one to state that it’s time to go. He takes in a deep breath before starting to walk. Before the advanced cooking class can start, she walks outside with him, because she probably wants to be there the moment they finally meet.

Bokuto has never been so tense in his entire life.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who followed us this far... it's date day! For the third time! But... will it work this time? Stay tuned to find out!

Bokuto is walking alongside grandma Hanako-san. The woman has a hand on his back, guiding him outside, almost as if she’s afraid he’ll flee if she doesn’t steer him in the right direction. He can’t even blame her, after all, considering how badly the previous attempts at blind dates went. The two of them are among the last of the group to leave the class, and when they do Kumiko-chan is already out. The moment he steps foot outside of the building, there are two things that catch Bokuto’s eye immediately. One is that Kuroo is there, leaning against the wall, wearing a shirt that is a little too tight with the first few buttons undone, and a pair of skinny jeans that, in Bokuto’s opinion, he shouldn’t even be allowed to wear in public. The second thing he notices, and that probably the entire neighborhood has noticed as well, is that Kuroo and Kumiko-chan are shouting at each other.

“So that’s why you didn’t want to go out with me? Because you’re gay? Senpai, you made me feel like I had done something wrong, just so that you could keep hiding that you’re _gay_?” Kumiko-chan yells, attracting more than a stare. Kuroo seems embarrassed, but also angry. “Yes, okay? Yes, I could have never been interested in you because I’ve never liked girls. Happy now? Now Nasaki please stop yelling at me, it’s not like I chose to be gay anyway” Kuroo replies.

Kumiko-chan sniffles, then she lowers her voice. “I can’t believe that everyone I ever liked turned out to be gay. It’s so unfair!” she states, then she turns towards Bokuto and finally notices his presence. That seems to awaken her fighting spirit once again. “You know what? You two deserve each other!” she concludes, looking from one of them to the other. Then she turns around and storms away, stomping her feet angrily.

Only then Bokuto realizes exactly what’s happening, and the meaning of what Kumiko-chan has just said. Only then he realizes the implications of Kuroo being there. Of all the boys named Tetsu in Tokyo, that probably are a shitload by the way, his luck – or lack thereof – has brought him one _Kuroo Tetsurou_. Slowly he moves his gaze to Kuroo, who has probably just noticed him as well, because he’s staring at Bokuto with his mouth slightly open and twisted in horror. Bokuto can see fear in his eyes. Kuroo’s usual confidence is gone, and even his posture looks insecure now.

Bokuto isn’t any better himself. He’s having some trouble remembering how to breathe, and his eyesight is going blurry. Is he about to have a panic attack? Maybe he is, after all. His legs seem to be about to abandon him as well. “K-Kuroo?” he squeals out an undignified cry that sounds like his friend’s name. He wants the ground to open up and swallow him alive. He wants to disappear in the dark, never to be seen again.

In front of him, Kuroo seems about to start crying. Or maybe he’s going to pass out? Looking at him, Bokuto feels something pressing in his throat, something that definitely shouldn’t be there. It takes him a few seconds to realize that maybe it’s his heart, because it surely feels like it is. Great, now he also feels the need to throw up! “B-Bo-Bokuto?” Kuroo stutters, his voice uncertain, almost as if he’s hoping that what he’s seeing isn’t true. Unfortunately for the both of them, however, everything is very much _real_.

The embarrassing moment of silence that follows is only interrupted by the old woman, who still has a hand on Bokuto’s back. She looks from one of the boys to the other, then she gives them both a surprised yet polite smile. “Kou-chan? Tetsu-chan? You know each other?” she asks, a little confused. Probably she wasn’t expecting things to turn out this way. Well, she’s certainly not the only one. Bokuto tries to swallow his heart back down, so that he can say something in reply, but he fails.

“Shit! Seriously, grandma?” Kuroo is the first one to recover the ability to speak. His voice is loud, way more high-pitched than usual, and honestly also a little desperate. Kuroo is a mess, the way Bokuto has never seen him before. He’s crumbling before his eyes, in a way he’s never imagined Kuroo could ever manage to break. Bokuto doesn’t know if he should feel flattered or offended, considering that he’s most likely the reason behind Kuroo’s emotional turmoil at the moment.

Kuroo’s words make grandma Hanako-san startle a little, probably taken aback by the aggressiveness her grandson is showing. This gives both boys the strength to speak their mind, because Bokuto is finally able to speak up. “ _Kuroo_ is your grandson?” he asks the woman, at the same time as Kuroo tells her “I can’t believe you’ve been trying to set me up with _Bokuto_!”

Bokuto has to admit that the entire situation feels kind of surreal. Not even Akaashi would believe him, if he told him. Well, but he’s not going to tell him, of course. That’s probably the single most embarrassing moment of his entire life, one that he really doesn’t want anyone else to know about. This time not even Akaashi can know. This is too much, and Bokuto thinks it’s better if he keeps it entirely to himself. Forever.

“You do know each other, then. Well, this is a surprise. It means you’ll have a lot to talk about” the woman finally says. She’s smiling, even though she’s been on the receiving end of Kuroo’s pretty harsh words. Bokuto can’t figure out if she’s feeling offended or not. To be honest, however, at the moment he probably wouldn’t be able to figure out even if she’s breathing or not, considering how much his mind is concentrated elsewhere. Because he’s struggled to figure out if he’s gay or not, he’s tried his best to force himself not to like Kuroo as more than a friend, and then an old woman sets him up on a blind date and his date turns out to be none other than Kuroo himself. If destiny isn’t laughing now...

He chews on his lower lip, not sure about what to say. He panics, however, when he notices Kuroo taking a couple of steps in his direction. He tries to avert his gaze, and only then he realizes that his friend is doing the best he can to avoid looking at him as well. Kuroo is actually glaring straight at his grandmother, and he looks both embarrassed and annoyed. Now that he knows that the boy his grandmother wanted to introduce him to is Bokuto, he’s clearly not interested in that date anymore. And it hurts, because even though he tried real hard to stop thinking about Kuroo, Bokuto is pretty sure he still likes his friend.

“Grandma” Kuroo calls, his voice low and serious. Bokuto raises his gaze towards the other boy. Neither Kuroo nor his grandmother are talking, but they’re staring at each other, as if they’re communicating telepathically. Bokuto has to admit that it’s the coolest thing he’s ever seen. But he can’t dwell on that, not now.

He’s about to interrupt that strange silence, to tell them both that maybe it’s better if he goes home after all, when they both turn towards him at the same time. Kuroo is blushing, while grandma Hanako-san is smiling. “Well boys, I have a class to attend. So off you go! Have fun” the woman says, then she turns towards the entrance of the building and walks away, leaving the two of them there alone. In the meantime, while Bokuto was too busy panicking to notice, everyone else is gone, and the only people around are the attendees of the advanced level cooking class walking inside for their lesson. It means that he’s completely alone with Kuroo for the first time since the day he stayed for dinner at the other’s house.

It doesn’t take long before the situation gets awkward. Neither of them seems to know what to say, but at least Kuroo is not fleeing and that alone is something. It actually gives Bokuto hope that the embarrassing situation they’ve been thrown into won’t ruin their friendship completely. After all, it’s not easy for a friendship to recover from being forced to go on a date together. They’re avoiding each other’s gaze, and after a while it’s Kuroo who breaks the silence. “So, what would you like to eat? I’m starving!” he inquires, letting Bokuto know that he’s actually willing to go on that date, after all.

Bokuto wants to smile so openly that his entire face might hurt for two days after, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to show Kuroo how happy he is to go through with the date idea, because he’s afraid that the other boy might find his reaction too weird. They’re pretty close friends, after all. They can eat together without having it mean something. It’s not like they haven’t done it before. Therefore, he doesn’t want to show how much he would love for it to mean more than just having dinner between pals.

That’s why he takes a few seconds to think, before he can reply to Kuroo’s question. “I feel like eating some junk food. I heard that there’s an American fast food nearby that’s pretty good” he finally says. For his extreme delight, a wicked smile appears on Kuroo’s face. It’s one of those twisted smiles that only Kuroo can do, and that people usually consider scary; Bokuto really likes them though, he thinks they represent the best of his friend’s personality pretty well.

“I think I know where it is. What do you say? Last one to the restaurant won’t make it to the Spring Tournament?” Kuroo suggests. Before Bokuto can even say that yes, he accepts the challenge, the other boy shows him another one of those wicked smiles of his, pushes him out of the way and starts running down the street, laughing.

It only takes Bokuto a couple of seconds to realize what’s happening, then he sprints after his friend. He catches up with Kuroo before the other can even make the first turn, and he lets his instinct guide his actions. At the moment, after all, everything feels normal, like any other day in which he’s playing around with Kuroo. Therefore he doesn’t even think about the implications of his actions, when he decides to tackle the other boy from behind. He wraps both arms around Kuroo’s torso while yelling “Gotcha!” and with the force of his leap he brings them both to crash against the wall that they’re flanking in their run. He hears a yelp coming from Kuroo, who probably wasn’t expecting anything like that, but a moment later they’re both laughing.

They’ve touched thousands of times during their couple of years of friendship. They’re two pretty tactile people, after all. And Bokuto has always had a habit of jumping on Kuroo’s back, wrapping himself around his friend. Therefore, Bokuto’s arms around Kuroo’s torso shouldn’t feel weird in any way. Truth is, however, that for the first time Bokuto feels like that contact is too intimate, and when Kuroo brings both hands to his arms, trying to free himself, Bokuto immediately lets go as if he’s been burned. He blushes, embarrassed, and he can see a perplexed expression replace the smile on Kuroo’s face when his friend turns around to face him.

“Sorry” Bokuto mumbles, diverting his gaze. Why is he acting like that? They’ve done way worse than that in the past! Yet he admits that things were different before. Now they both know that the other is gay, so every touch they share might hold a different meaning. Sure, it doesn’t have to mean anything different than before if they don’t want it to, but Bokuto is still new to all of this, therefore he doesn’t really understand how it works, or how his friend might perceive his actions. Especially because Bokuto actually _likes_ Kuroo. How can he even keep denying it when he feels like his skin is on fire every time his friend smiles at him? And okay, he’s found others to be attractive, but they all shared a common trait, something that he thought was maybe a characteristic that identified his _type_. If he’s honest with himself, however, all the guys he’s found attractive where those who somehow reminded him of Kuroo.

After Bokuto’s embarrassed apology, Kuroo seems to also realize what’s going on, and he blushes as well. What the hell is happening to them? They used to be good at joking around with each other. Is everything really so different now that they’re more aware of the situation? If things between them are already tense like this, Bokuto doesn’t even what to imagine how much worse they could be if Kuroo was to find out that Bokuto actually likes him.

An awkward silence falls between the two of them, and finally Bokuto is the first one to interrupt it. “How about we just walk there?” he suggests, and Kuroo nods in agreement. Therefore, they start walking at a normal pace, side by side, once again in silence. It’s not that they don’t have anything to talk about, but Bokuto feels like every possible topic of conversation might not be the right one to use at the moment. What should one talk about while on a date with one of his best friends, who also happens to be his crush? That’s obviously a difficult question to answer. His situation is definitely messed up.

Once again, Kuroo is the one to break the silence. “You know, I can’t believe you wore your volleyball owl t-shirt on a date” he comments with a smirk on his face, barely keeping laughter at bay. Bokuto grabs the hems of his t-shirt with both hands and pulls in order to stretch the fabric, then he tilts his head down to take a look at what he’s wearing. Why has Kuroo said such a thing? That’s the coolest t-shirt he owns, why wouldn’t he want to wear it on a date?

“What’s wrong with it?” he questions, uncertain. That’s when Kuroo outright laughs, leaving Bokuto even more confused. “Well, it’s not really date material, you know. But I have to admit that it truly compliments your stupid face. That’s a very _you_ thing to do!” Kuroo admits, and once again Bokuto doesn’t know what to do with the other’s words. He’s not sure if he should feel offended because his friend said that he has a stupid face, or if he should read that sentence as a compliment disguised as an insult. He decides to go for the latter when his eyes meet the conspiratorial smile on Kuroo’s lips, and all he can do at that point is to smile back the same way. If Kuroo wants to compliment his outfit by insulting him, then two can play that game.

“You know what? Why don’t you unbutton that shirt a little more? At this point you might as well go shirtless, don’t you think?” is Bokuto’s turn to laugh now, while Kuroo looks down at his own shirt and, blushing a little, fastens a button. Only then he raises his head again, and when he does he’s smirking.

“Better now? I honestly didn’t think all of my hotness could hurt your eyes so much. After all, you’ve seen me wearing way less than this before” Kuroo states, and this time it’s Bokuto’s turn to avert his gaze and blush.

“That definitely isn’t what I meant” Bokuto mumbles, and then he elbows Kuroo to the side with enough strength that the other needs a couple of seconds to catch his breath. Well, they really managed to make even friendly banter look awkward. At this point, Bokuto fears that dinner isn’t going to be relaxing at all.

And of course he’s not wrong. Once they reach the restaurant, they make their order and sit down at an empty table. While they wait for their burgers to arrive, they try their best to keep the conversation going, but they fail miserably. They even end up talking about the freaking _weather_. It’s only when their dinner arrives that they feel like joking around again, mocking each other for the way they eat their burgers, and trying to steal each other’s fries. It doesn’t take long for Bokuto to realize that, taking away the awkwardness of being on an actual date, he really enjoys spending time with Kuroo like that. At the same time, however, he doesn’t even feel like hoping that his friend could think the same. Sure, they’ve always been good friends, and they have great chemistry, but Kuroo will probably never even consider him _that way_ , and Bokuto has to make peace with it.

After a few jokes that almost make him spit out what he’s chewing, Bokuto knows for sure that there’s nothing he’d like more than to do this again, but maybe with the addition of holding hands during dinner. More than once he plays in his mind with the idea of reaching out across the table, taking Kuroo’s hand and just holding it. He knows, however, that his friend would never agree to that. The situation is already awkward as it is now, they really shouldn’t make it even worse. So he doesn’t move, even though he really wants to. Then Kuroo smiles at him, and Bokuto feels butterflies in his stomach once again. He’s slowly going crazy, because the other boy is acting like they always do, like they’re just two friends grabbing a bite together. That’s obviously all they are to Kuroo, and Bokuto can’t let his friend see how much he wants it to be something else.

They should probably talk about themselves at some point, get their secrets off their chests. For weeks they’ve talked to Kuroo’s grandmother about what’s hurting them about their situation, something they pretty much have in common. That date was actually supposed to be the perfect occasion to finally share and compare experiences. The fact that they know each other, however, is preventing them both from going down that road. They’re trying to joke and talk about volleyball, but there are a lot of heavy silences as well, during which they feel too uncomfortable to even look at each other. That’s definitely not how the date was supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? They managed to meet!  
> I wanted to write the entire date in one chapter, but it ended up being too long, so I had to cut it. The rest of it will be out on Thursday. :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the rest of the date :)  
> Thank you all for reading and for the feedback you're providing. I really appreciate it.

When dinner is over, they leave the restaurant and go for a walk. Neither of them really suggests to do it, they just start walking side by side in a random direction. The subway station is located the opposite way, Bokuto soon realizes, meaning that they’re not going home immediately. Does it mean that, after all, Kuroo doesn’t want the evening to end just yet either?

The two of them end up at a park, where they silently sit down on a stone bench in front of a very small pond with fish swimming inside. Bokuto follows a huge red and white koi with his eyes, tracking its movements. Anything to take his mind off the heat of Kuroo’s body, sitting incredibly close to him. To be more accurate, the two of them are almost touching, their thighs no more than an inch apart.

“Today was a shock, you know. Seeing you walk out of that door with my grandmother, I mean” Kuroo starts to say. Bokuto finally takes his eyes off the pond to look at his friend, but he finds that Kuroo’s head is tilted back, and he’s looking at the sky.

Bokuto nods, even though he other can’t see him, and starts playing with his own fingers, nervously pulling at them. “I get it. When I saw you there talking to Kumiko-chan I was like, shit, what do I do now?” Bokuto emphasizes.

“Talking about... _stuff_... with a stranger is one thing, but with a friend? That’s complicated. And awkward” Kuroo continues, eyes still fixated on the sky. Bokuto takes advantage of the fact that the other boy is looking elsewhere to take a good look at him, even though just from the corner of his eye.

“I know, right? But I have to admit that you’re like the last person I would have imagined to be gay” Bokuto admits. He can see Kuroo wince a little when he mentions his sexuality. Does it mean that he’s not ready to talk about it with him? Yet he’s the one who started that conversation, meaning that he should have known where it was going to go. Or has Bokuto misread the signs? Maybe Kuroo still isn’t ready to talk about himself with him, after all.

“I’m the last person? I’ve never had a girlfriend, I even turned down Nasaki when she confessed to me. You, on the other hand, have been her boyfriend for weeks. If someone should be surprised, that’s me” Kuroo retorts, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

At that, Bokuto tries to laugh to hide the embarrassment. “On my behalf, I didn’t know that I didn’t like girls until... well, until I was dating a girl and I didn’t like it” he explains. This probably catches Kuroo’s attention, because the boy turns his head slightly to look at him. “Fair enough” Kuroo accepts.

For a moment the two of them lock eyes. They’re both smiling, but not in a natural way. Bokuto’s smile is forced, and he can see that Kuroo’s is too. “Does all of this mean that from now on we can talk to each other about this kind of stuff?” Bokuto asks after another moment of silence. He’s once again staring at the pond, not sure if he wants to see the expression on Kuroo’s face. His question is vague, but he knows that the other will easily understand what he’s talking about, even though he can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Kuroo shrugs. “I don’t know, it feels weird” he admits, and Bokuto can easily understand why. Since they’re friends, and they know most of the people in the other’s life, Bokuto probably knows the guy Kuroo has the hots for. Kuroo is probably thinking about the same thing, and that’s most likely the reason why he’s skeptical about the whole confiding in each other thing.

“I get it, you know. The fact that we’re friends means that I probably know the guy you like. And I can say for sure that you know the one that I like. It’s weird, and it’s messy, but what’s the alternative?” Bokuto whispers. He can’t manage to say those words any louder, because he’s afraid that his voice would suddenly stop working if he tries to raise it. He sighs, before he resumes talking. “I haven’t told anyone else about me. Not even Akaashi. And I always tell Akaashi everything. I mean, he’s also the only one who knows I take cooking classes. But he really can’t know about this, I don’t want to imagine how he would look at me if he knew” he confesses.

He doesn’t want to get dejected in front of Kuroo, not when they’re having such a delicate conversation, but he starts feeling a little down anyway, all of a sudden. He closes his eyes, so that he doesn’t have to look even out of the corner of an eye at whatever Kuroo’s reaction is. That’s why he’s definitely surprised when he feels a hand gently land on his back. It doesn’t move, but it gives him a grounding touch that he finds incredibly comforting.

“I feel the same. I haven’t told Kenma either” Kuroo confesses. Bokuto understands that his friend can sympathize with how he’s feeling. Without even thinking about what he’s doing, he tilts his head to the side as much as he needs in order to rest it on Kuroo’s shoulder. As a response to his gesture, he feels his friend’s body stiffen for a second, then Kuroo relaxes again and starts moving the hand on Bokuto’s back, rubbing up and down his spine. Bokuto’s heart is beating so fast that he fears it will jump out of his ribcage.

In that position, being so close to Kuroo, Bokuto finds himself wondering what could happen if he decides to move his head just a little bit, the few inches that will allow him to press his lips against Kuroo’s. During the past few weeks he’s kept telling himself that no, he doesn’t like Kuroo, not like that. But the truth is that he does like him, and now that they’re sharing such an intimate moment, he can’t stop himself from wondering if maybe, just maybe, Kuroo might be learning how to like him too.

He shifts a little, finding a more comfortable position. Now he’s basically breathing against Kuroo’s neck, but if he opens his eyes as wide as they go, he can also see his friend’s face. Kuroo is looking right in front of him, probably lost in thought. Then, all of a sudden, he stops rubbing Bokuto’s back and a smirk appears on his lips. “Anyway, what’s with you taking cooking classes? It’s so gay, bro! What are you, a housewife?” Kuroo jokes, and just like that, in less than a second, the atmosphere is gone. Bokuto jerks away from him and shoves him playfully with both hands, a fake-offended pout on his face.

“That wasn’t my idea, I swear! My mother forced me to do it, I didn’t want to! And you weren’t supposed to find out anyway!” he replies, trying to justify himself. It’s the truth, after all. In addition to that, he’s also grateful that his mother has convinced him to take those cooking classes. Sure, cooking is not his favorite activity in the world, but he likes the fact that he’s pretty good at it now. And of course he’s glad for the people he’s been able to meet.

“If it wasn’t for the cooking classes I would have never met your grandmother, though. So I think I’m glad, because I like her a lot” Bokuto confesses, making Kuroo laugh in that open and loud way that twists his entire face and makes him sound like some kind of animal is dying.

“Look at you, you’re cooking and your new bff is in her seventies. You’re so lame!” Kuroo comments without really interrupting his laughter. Hearing those words, Bokuto can’t stop himself from smacking his friend in the back of his head.

After that, it only takes a second before Bokuto sprints off the bench, running for his life, and Kuroo starts chasing after him. They’re both laughing when it’s Kuroo’s turn to tackle Bokuto, and the two of them end up tumbling down on the grass. It takes a couple of minutes before they can stop laughing, and even longer before they can steady their breaths again, after the effort of that quick sprint.

“I’m glad we’re friends” Kuroo states out of the blue, lying on the grass with his eyes towards the sky. Bokuto turns his head slightly in his friend’s direction, a devilish smile on his face.

“Who’s gay now, bro?” he comments, laughing. Kuroo appears to be a little embarrassed by those words. “Shut up, you ass...” he says, shoving Bokuto lightly.

Bokuto is still chuckling when he realizes that Kuroo looks more serious than he should be, considering that they’re messing around like they always do when they’re together. “I’m serious, though. I care about our friendship. The fact that now we know we’re both gay doesn’t mean that things need to change. I mean, we can still be friends like we were before, right? We don’t necessarily have to act differently” Kuroo says.

And there they are, those words that Bokuto was dreading to hear. Kuroo has just given him that _I may be gay but I don’t like you_ speech. Bokuto was expecting it, but at the same time he was also hoping that it didn’t come. Therefore, now he just wants to curl on himself and cry silently. Kuroo doesn’t like him, doesn’t even want to grow to like him, and it’s sad. But he can’t show his friend how much those words hurt him, so he forces himself to smile. “Of course, being anything other than friends would be gross!” he finally replies, even though of course he thinks the exact opposite. He would actually like to have something more than friendship with Kuroo, even though it took him quite some time to realize it, and even longer to admit it to himself.

“ _You_ ’re gross!” is Kuroo’s reply, accompanied by a pat on Bokuto’s head. “Your face is gross!” Bokuto affirms, with all the maturity of a five-year-old. They’re easily falling back into their usual banter and it feels natural, somehow _right_. Then why does Bokuto feel like something is missing? There has never been anything else between them, this is how things have always been, yet now he can’t take his mind off the thought that something else should be happening. It’s the same sensation he’s felt at dinner, when he wanted to reach for Kuroo’s hand across the table.

He can’t, however, show Kuroo that he wishes for more, not after the other has made pretty clear that he doesn’t. That’s why he decides to sit up and offer Kuroo his fist. “Bros?” Bokuto suggests, a grin on his face. Kuroo sits up as well and bumps his fist, a similar grin painted on his face as well. “Bros” he confirms.

***

After that evening out, apparently nothing changes between them. But the truth is that Bokuto can feel that something is definitely different. At first he didn’t notice, but after a little while even he can understand that they’re talking way more than they always used to. Sometimes they even talk about themselves, but most of the time they just joke around. While at school it’s not rare for Bokuto to take out his cellphone during class and text Kuroo saying that he’s bored, and in reply Kuroo tells him what he sees outside the window while trying not to fall asleep. At that point they keep talking and talking about absolutely nothing, and there is a warm smile on Bokuto’s lips every time he receives a text from Kuroo.

This change hasn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the Fukurodani volleyball team. Akaashi is the first one to understand that something is going on with Bokuto, but soon enough the others get suspicious as well. After a couple of weeks, Bokuto realizes that most of his team is trying to spy on his conversations every time he receives a text message. He doesn’t understand why until Akaashi sees that the person texting him, and making him brighten like the sun, is Kuroo.

Most people usually say that Bokuto and Kuroo together are dangerous. That’s outrageous and unbelievable, but it’s also very true. Every time one of them has a stupid idea, the other one is always ready to back him up. That’s how they’ve ended up in trouble more than once during the past couple of years. Akaashi is usually the one who has to go save them, because Kenma doesn’t even bother to lift a finger for Kuroo every time he goes looking for trouble. Bokuto is obviously grateful for the good heart of his best friend, but at the same time he knows that at some point Akaashi will exhaust his reserve of patience. That’s the reason why he worries when he sees the setter give him _that_ look. The _don’t you dare do anything stupid_ look that usually comes when Bokuto and Kuroo are allowed to spend too much time together.

Of course he tries to ignore that glare, but Akaashi doesn’t stop. One day after practice, the setter approaches his captain in the changing room, a worried expression on his face. “I couldn’t stop noticing that you’re spending a lot of time texting Kuroo-san” Akaashi starts to say, and for a moment Bokuto feels afraid that his friend has caught up what’s really going on. He freezes, trying to find something, anything, to say in his own defense. “What are you two up to? Are you going to get arrested? I need to be prepared for whatever will come” Akaashi continues, and without even noticing what he’s doing, Bokuto exhales a sigh of relief.

If Akaashi thinks that they’re up to no good, then Bokuto will make sure that he’ll keep thinking that. Sure, it will mean more attention from the setter to whatever he does, but at the same time he won’t arise any suspicion regarding what’s really going on with Kuroo. The best possible option, however, is if Akaashi would just mind his own business, but of course Bokuto knows that it’s not possible. The setter cares about him, and looks after him the best that Bokuto allows him to. This doesn’t mean, however, that he doesn’t still try to change the subject every time that Akaashi brings up Kuroo in a conversation, getting incredibly nervous, and probably managing to screw up his own plan to keep Akaashi at bay, since his friend is probably even more suspicious now, after seeing the way he’s acting.

During their date, Bokuto and Kuroo decided that they were going to keep their friendship as it was, that they were only going to be good friends and nothing more. And it has been all Kuroo’s idea, considering that Bokuto would have gladly accepted to try turning their friendship into something else. Yet now Kuroo calls him almost every evening, something that he’s never done before. During their evening calls they mostly talk about what they did during the day, and they compare their personal situations. It’s comforting to be able to talk to Kuroo about serious stuff almost every evening, in addition to the stupid shit they chat about during the day. It’s a precious bond, something that Bokuto is happy to have found.

But of course he can’t tell Akaashi any of this, so it’s better if his best friend keeps thinking that he’s cooking up some crazy plan with Kuroo. Actually, just to give Akaashi something to worry about, he decides that it’ll be a good idea if they plan one of their special adventures for real. That’s why one morning Bokuto texts Kuroo suggesting that, should their teams both qualify for Nationals, they should celebrate by skinny-dipping in the pond at that park where they went on their date. Kuroo is just as crazy as he is, so of course he immediately agrees without asking any questions.

Only after confirming the plan, Bokuto starts seeing the flaws in it. Going skinny-dipping with Kuroo will mean being naked, together. He’s not sure he’ll manage the situation without slipping up and doing something he’ll regret. At the same time, however, he can’t get back on their decision and just change his mind, otherwise Kuroo will think that he has something to hide. They’re supposed to be normal friends, after all, and normal friends don’t feel shy and don’t get nervous if they see each other naked. Maybe this time he’s gone too far. Unfortunately, he will just have to find a way to handle the situation, because he can’t do anything about it now. But yet again, maybe Akaashi will really find out what they’re planning enough in advance to stop them before they even get there. Yes, let’s hope for that.

***

On the first day of qualification matches, that is the third day for those who didn’t make it to Nationals last year, Kenma informs the entire Fukurodani team that Karasuno has managed to defeat Shiratorizawa and qualify for Nationals. Bokuto brightens at the news, because it means that he’ll have a chance to play against Hinata and Tsukki on national stage. He’d love the idea of that. Even though there’s only one team he’d like to play in the finals, and that team is Nekoma. Nothing would be more thrilling than winning Nationals by defeating Kuroo in the finals. But in order to get there, Fukurodani will have to defeat every opponent that stands in their way.

Bokuto’s mood is stellar the moment he sets foot on the court for the first match. His first round opponents get obliterated in straight sets, without ever managing to score more than 15 points per set. Bokuto is in tiptop condition, and he’s ready to kick ass in every match after that.

Before he even has the time to realize it, they get to the last day of qualifications. Only four teams are left, and just three of them will make it to Nationals. Fukurodani intends to win the entire tournament, being Tokyo first representative. It will be good advertising for them, meaning that they’ll have a bigger crowd cheering for them during their matches at Nationals. Of course that’s all Bokuto can think about where the representative spots are concerned. It truly doesn’t make any real difference, and Akaashi keeps telling him so, but he doesn’t care. He wants the entire audience on his side, meaning that he’ll have to be the number one to accomplish that.

It’s still too early, however, to think about the finals, because the semifinals are about to begin, and Fukurodani will be facing Nekoma. Chills run down Bokuto’s spine at the idea of facing Kuroo in a real official match. He’s excited when they shake hands before the beginning of the game, when they promise each other that they’ll give their all, and may the better team win, the loser won’t hold any grudges. He feels so full of energy, just thinking about how amazing that match can be, that his first spike sends the ball all the way to the upper row of bleachers.

The match is exhilarating. Kenma and Yaku are as good as ever, and Kuroo is in perfect shape, even showing off a few new tricks. Bokuto plays at his best, and he’s sure that everyone on the other side of the net is doing the same, because they keep stopping his spikes in that really annoying way that only Nekoma can manage. Actually he has to admit that they’re getting so fired up with blocking his spikes that he even feels his mood start to shift. That’s when he forgets how to spike crosses. It’s not his fault, it really isn’t, it’s just that he feels really good about his straights. But Nekoma keeps shutting them down and it’s really annoying.

In the end, however, he manages to recover with his crosses, and he of course carries the entire team to victory. Well, that’s not true at all, it’s mostly the other way around, with his team carrying him, but Bokuto of course sees it under a very different perspective. The important thing, however, is that they win. They advance to the final, meaning that they’re going to Nationals for sure. Now the only question is if they’re going to be the first or second representative. He will worry about that in a moment, however, because first there’s something more important he needs to do.

He runs towards Akaashi, picks him up and wraps him in a bone-crushing hug. He cheers with the rest of the team, jumping around after letting go of Akaashi, and randomly hugging his other teammates. Being this close to his team makes him feel unstoppable. In the middle of the celebration, however, he turns around and sees Nekoma leaving the court. His heart drops for a moment at that sight, and before he can even think about what he’s doing, he’s leaving his team and running towards Nekoma, yelling Kuroo’s name.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I would like to thank everyone for the feedback provided, and for just taking the time to read this.  
> Today work really ruined my mood, but I didn't want to miss my regular updates. That's why I'm posting even though I'm not sure I actually edited all the mistakes out of this chapter. My proofreading abilities are definitely questionable at the moment. If you see any mistakes please let me know.

His friend stops, while the rest of Nekoma keeps walking. Kuroo is now standing in front of him, tired and maybe a little sad, but he also seems to be proud of him, at least by the way he’s smiling at Bokuto. “It was a nice game” Bokuto says, offering his right hand to Kuroo.

The other boy smirks at him, looking at that hand for a couple of seconds. “Yes, yes it was. You deserved to win” Nekoma’s captain confirms, grabbing Bokuto’s hand with his own and holding onto it.

From there it’s difficult to understand which one of them moves first. The most likely possibility is that they move at the same time. One moment they’re shaking hands, the next they’re hugging with emphasis. Bokuto’s face pressed against Kuroo’s shoulder, Kuroo’s face against Bokuto’s neck. They’re probably using a little too much strength, almost as if they’re trying to kill each other instead of giving each other comfort.

“Please win the text match. I don’t want to go to Nationals without you” Bokuto requests, admitting that he would really love to have Kuroo with him at the Spring Tournament.

“Of course we’ll win. How could I leave you all alone at Nationals?” Kuroo states, determination seeping through his words. Bokuto feels incredibly glad about it, and he starts believing that they can really pull this through. They can really go to Nationals together. With both Nekoma and Karasuno there, it will surely be an amazing tournament!

After a little while, Bokuto realizes that they’re still hugging, and that’s a position that can easily be misread by other people. Kuroo probably thinks the same thing, because they take a step back at the same time, letting go of each other.

“Let’s go win our matches, and then tonight we go skinny-dipping in the pond!” Bokuto announces, raising his fist in Kuroo’s direction, a face-splitting grin curving his lips.

Kuroo replies with the same exact grin. “You got it, bro!” Nekoma’s middle blocker says, bumping his fist.

(Un)fortunately, that’s the moment the entire Fukurodani team chooses to walk by the two of them on their way out of the court. “Skinny-dipping in a pond? That’s what the two of you were plotting? Hell no!” Akaashi states, grabbing Bokuto by the shirt. “Let’s go Bokuto-san, we have to prepare for the final match. Kuroo-san, good luck for your next match, I really hope you manage to qualify as well” the setter says, and with that he drags Bokuto away.

Well, as embarrassing as that scene is, it’s still nothing compared to the idea of actually stripping naked with Kuroo. Bokuto really needs to mentally thank Akaashi for appearing at the perfect moment so that, when Bokuto will have to cancel with Kuroo, it will look like it’s all Akaashi’s fault.

***

Fukurodani ends up losing the final, becoming representative number two. Nekoma, however, manages to defeat Nohebi, even though they have to play without Yaku. Bokuto is really impressed with their accomplishment, also feeling strangely proud of little Shibayama, and he goes to congratulate them after all of the matches are over. Seeing how happy Kuroo looks, he feels something somersault inside his stomach, and for a moment he even contemplates the foolish idea of just walking to him and kissing him, right there in front of everyone. Luckily he can still think well enough to understand that it won’t be a good idea at all, so he stops himself before doing anything insanely stupid.

During the following weeks, however, things slowly become more difficult to bear. The two of them keep talking every day, and they even meet a few times with different excuses. Once they go play volleyball with some of their teammates, another time Bokuto goes with Kuroo to Kenma’s house to see his videogame collection and spend some time playing together. Every time they see each other, they both end up finding new excuses to touch.

In the beginning Bokuto thinks that it’s just him, but after a few times he’s not so sure anymore. Is it possible that Kuroo might be trying to get closer to him? Would he ruin their friendship if he admits out loud that he would love to date Kuroo for real? At this point he’s uncertain, he really doesn’t know what to do. That’s why he ends up doing the only thing that he can think of in a difficult moment: he decides to talk about it with the only person who might understand his situation.

Now that he knows the person he likes is actually grandma Hanako-san’s grandson, talking to the woman might be a little more embarrassing than it was before. But what alternatives does he have? He talks to her on a Monday, expressing his doubts about his current situation. He doesn’t outright tell her that he has a huge crush on her grandson, but he’s sure she’ll be able to read that in his words anyway. He’s nervous when he starts talking about Kuroo. It’s the first time they talk about him after their date, after all, and that’s another reason why it’s awkward to just mention him once again, out of the blue.

“Do you think your grandson is doing okay, lately?” he asks in the middle of the cooking class. She looks at him tilting her head with curiosity, then she smiles, gently patting his cheek.

“You really care about him, don’t you, Kou-chan?” the old woman asks in reply. Bokuto can’t stop himself from blushing, and he has to divert his gaze because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to withstand the woman’s eyes. Especially considering that, now that he knows about the family relation, he can see that Kuroo has his grandmother’s eyes; something that he never noticed in the past and that doesn’t really help him in moments like this.

He barely manages to nod a little. “He’s one of my best friends. He was _before_ , and he is even more now” he mumbles, talking maybe a little too quick for his words to be easy to understand. Grandma Hanako-san, however, manages to hear him fine enough.

“Of course, dear” she says, and when Bokuto dares to catch a glimpse of her she’s smiling at him with affection. It’s strange, but sometimes it almost feels that she’s treating him like family. And that’s exactly one of those moments.

“I just want to know if he’s really fine, you know. Because he looks fine, but he’s been going through some serious stuff these past few months, and he looked fine to me the entire time as well, so I just don’t know what to think when it comes to him. He’s really good at hiding how he feels” Bokuto explains. He’s not even sure himself about what he’s trying to accomplish with that conversation. But maybe, he hopes, from the woman’s words he’ll be able to understand if Kuroo might be starting to feel closer to him as well. He really hopes that, whatever he feels there is between the two of them now, is not entirely in his head. He’ll probably never have the courage to ask Kuroo directly, so asking his grandmother is the next best thing. But of course he can’t talk directly to her either, therefore he’ll have to move around the subject and hope for the best.

The woman seems to think about the answer to give him, and in the meantime Bokuto keeps looking after the food he’s cooking, making sure that nothing gets burned. He’s really handling the situation pretty well, considering that at the moment he’s still able to cook even though he’s nervous, something that he hasn’t been able to do until very recently.

“Tetsu-chan isn’t confiding in me much, lately, but I think that talking to you is doing him well. He seems happier, now that the two of you hang out more” she smiles while talking, leaving Bokuto to feel a little relieved. Does it mean that Kuroo feels better because of him? Is his presence what’s making Kuroo happier? Does it mean that he might have a chance to get something more than friendship out of him?

Bokuto bites at his lower lip, wondering about what to do. Should he ask her or not? If things go wrong he might ruin everything, including his friendship with Kuroo, but what if things work out instead? Maybe it’s worth a try, after all. Maybe things will end for the better. That’s why he decides to take a deep breath and... screw it, he’ll give it a try.

“Do you remember when I told you that I have this friend I like?” he asks, his voice a little shaky; the woman nods. “It’s him. It’s always been him. And the closer we get, the more I like him. But he’s the one who said that we should keep our friendship as it was before, and I’m going crazy. Because nothing is the same as it was before, sometimes it almost seems like he’s doing it on purpose just to make me lose my mind. And I don’t want to be just his friend, I want to be his boyfriend!” Bokuto lets out all at once, barely breathing in between sentences. After that, he isn’t sure if he can bring himself to look at grandma Hanako-san. Is she going to think that he’s pathetic? Is she going to tell him that she likes him, but he’s not what her grandson wants? That he’s not enough for the other boy, after all?

When he dares to raise his eyes on the woman again, she’s looking at him with love and admiration. Her eyes are wet with unshed tears, he can see it clearly when she gets a little closer in order to cup his cheeks with both hands. “I’m glad Kou-chan, but I’m not the one you should tell this to. You need to tell Tetsu-chan” she says.

Bokuto freezes at that. Does she really want him to confess to Kuroo? “But... but what if he hates me?” he asks before he can even try to stop himself. The sheer thought is enough to hurt.

The woman pulls his head down to be at the same level with her face, and only then she leans forward and kisses his forehead. “Stop worrying, Kou-chan. Why don’t you boys give dating another chance? But this time you do it for real. Not as best friends, but as potential boyfriends” she suggests, letting go of his face. Bokuto blushes and for a few seconds he forgets how to speak. _Potential boyfriends_. He has to admit that it has an appealing sound.

“What if he doesn’t want to?” Bokuto almost whines. Grandma Hanako-san smiles at him once again.

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell him that it’s my idea and that you weren’t entirely sure either” she tries to comfort him, giving him a quick wink. Then, for the first time in the months he’s known her, she puts on a smirk that’s the carbon copy of her grandson’s trademark one. Without the shadow of a doubt, she’s the coolest person that Bokuto has ever met in his entire life. 

***

After talking about the possibility of a new date on Monday, Bokuto hasn’t heard anything from grandma Hanako-san. By Thursday, he’s pretty sure that Kuroo has no intention of going on a real date with him. Or maybe the woman hasn’t told her grandson about that idea yet. Otherwise why would Kuroo keep messaging him the entire time as if nothing had happened? When the old woman enters the kitchen in the middle on Thursday’s cooking class, Bokuto has every intention of talking to her, in order to find out if everything is still fine or not.

She is, however, the one who introduces that topic the moment she settles down beside Bokuto. “This is how things are going to go. My son is out of town, and I’ll convince my husband that we should really go somewhere nice for the weekend. Tetsu-chan will be home alone, so you’ll have your date on Saturday evening at our place. You’ll cook dinner, because if you wait for him to lift a finger you might as well starve, and you two will sort everything out” the woman declares. Based on the tone of her voice, Bokuto can easily understand that everything is already decided, and he doesn’t really have much of a say. Not that he has to complain anyway, to be honest. He likes that plan, even though he’s partially still afraid that Kuroo might not agree with that idea of an evening.

“Is he really okay with that?” he ends up asking, just to be sure. “I wouldn’t be telling you if he wasn’t” she informs him. It makes sense, she wouldn’t force her own beloved grandson into a date that he really doesn’t want. Does it mean that he’s actually willing to date Bokuto for real?

Being aware of this detail, Bokuto has a very hard time controlling his excitement on his way back from cooking school. When he gets home, even his mother can notice that something is definitely weird about him. He eats, does his homework, then goes to sleep. He has barely touched the bed, however, when his phone beeps, signaling an incoming text. His heart stops when he sees that it’s from Kuroo.

From: Kuroo  
**I hear that you’ll be cooking for me on Saturday :)**

Bokuto’s heart doesn’t seem to be interested in starting to beat again. He’s too shocked, seeing that Kuroo has voluntarily started a conversation about the date they’re going to have. Does it mean that he can’t wait for Saturday to arrive as well? Is he really happy to have Bokuto over for dinner? Trying to make his fingers stop shaking, Bokuto types a reply.

To: Kuroo  
**Going to woo u w my awesome cooking powers!! ;)**

He holds his breath after hitting the _send_ button. Has he gone too far? Because that’s definitely flirting, and probably Kuroo doesn’t want to hear anything of the sort. The two minutes it takes Kuroo to send him a reply are probably the longest of Bokuto’s life.

From: Kuroo  
**I’ll settle for you not poisoning me <3**

And there Bokuto is about to die, because Kuroo put a heart at the end of his text. Sure, he’s most likely joking, but does he even have the slightest idea of the effect he has on Bokuto? No, the other boy probably can’t even imagine what receiving that text is doing to him. He feels stupid, but at the same time he’s on cloud nine. Now he really can’t wait for Saturday to arrive.

***

On Saturday morning, Bokuto takes a volleyball to the face for getting distracted during practice. Luckily it doesn’t hit his nose, but he gets a pretty bad hit to the left cheekbone, that comes out of it pretty bruised, and his eye starts blackening immediately. Shit. He runs to the locker room, looking for a mirror, and he almost bursts to tears when he sees the condition his face is in. It’s unfair that he’s gotten hurt the day he has a date with Kuroo. What will his friend think about him then?

Then he realizes something that scares him to no end. During their previous date, Kuroo said that he has a stupid face. What will he say if Bokuto shows up looking like a panda straight out of a cartoon? He’s panicking, rubbing his face with both hands almost as if hoping to be able to erase the signs, when Akaashi arrives to check on him. “Bokuto-san, how are you feeling? It was a bad hit” the setter asks, getting closer to him in order to take a look at his face.

When Akaashi manages to pry Bokuto’s hands away from his face, Fukurodani’s captain gives him his best lost puppy eyes. “I want to die! Today I have the most important date of my entire life, and I’ll have to go looking like this!” he whines, sounding a little too melodramatic. Akaashi doesn’t seem to be impressed. The setter keeps a perfect calm, bringing a hand to Bokuto’s face to assess the damage. The wing spiker shuts his eyes and holds his breath, almost expecting his best friend to tell him that his injury is so severe that he’s definitely going to die before it’s time for his date.

But Akaashi doesn’t say anything of the sort. He gives him a polite smile instead, a small sigh escaping his lips. “Did you get hit because you were thinking about your date instead of looking at the ball?” Akaashi inquires.

Bokuto shows his most practiced insulted face at those words. “No!” he immediately spits out, the tone of his voice definitely defensive. “Yes...” he admits a moment later, deflating completely.

His best friend probably takes pity on him, because he decides to give him some good advice to get out of that situation. “Put ice on it, it should help with the swelling. And before leaving to go on your date, ask your mother to hide it with foundation, that should do the trick” the younger boy suggests. Bokuto hugs him, happy that he might have a real solution for his problem. He’s not a fan of makeup, but what other options does he have? He can’t show up at Kuroo’s looking like that. He wants to look perfect for the date.

Feeling a little reassured, he takes his phone out of his gym bag, sure that the coach won’t allow him to resume practice anyway, after the hit he just took. He’s checking for new messages while he walks back to the gym, going to sit on the bench. The moment he sits down, Kaori starts fussing over him, to check his condition, while Yukie hands him an ice pack before accusing him of being a lost cause. He already knows that, but he puts the ice on his face anyway.

He freezes when he sees a text from Kuroo, that was received about one hour ago. It only says two words:

From: Kuroo  
**I’m nervous**

Reading those words, Bokuto starts hyperventilating. He attracts the attention of everyone around him, and when Kaori tries to look over his shoulder at what just made him react like that, he hides his phone between his legs and closes them, to make sure that nobody can see. He does his best to calm his breath, but it’s not an easy task. Kuroo has just admitted that he’s nervous. He’s nervous about their date. It means that Bokuto makes him nervous. Sure, there’s always the second option, in which Kuroo is nervous because he was forced into that date when he really doesn’t want to do it, but Bokuto prefers not to think about that option, because he’s not sure his heart could take it at this point.

When he can finally breathe again, he first makes sure that everyone is looking at the court once again, where his teammates are divided into two teams playing a set against each other. Only then he takes his phone again and quickly replies with two words of his own:

To: Kuroo  
**Me too**

Of course he’s not lying. He’s probably more nervous than Kuroo, considering that he even managed to take a volleyball to the face while thinking about the date they’re going to have. But of course he doesn’t tell Kuroo any of that, because he doesn’t want his friend to think any less of him. If Kuroo finds out about the hit, he’ll never hear the end of it. They’ll end up in their usual mocking, and they’ll just hang out as friends like they did the first time, instead of letting that be a real date.

He doesn’t hear from Kuroo again until morning practice is over. He goes to lunch with his teammates, and right before he can bite down on his sandwich he receives another text; Kuroo has probably just ended morning practice as well.

From: Kuroo  
**Look at us, acting like normal people before a date**

He can almost hear Kuroo’s sarcastic voice pronouncing those words when he reads them. He’s not sure what to make of them, though, because he can’t understand if Kuroo is happy about this new situation or not. He would like to reassure his friend that it’s going to be a great date, but he’s not sure if he really should. What if Kuroo’s sarcasm means that he’s not actually interested in that date? Bokuto wouldn’t survive making such a gaffe. That’s why he opts for a more neutral reply.

To: Kuroo  
**Yup just like normal people**

After sending that text, he keeps checking his phone while he eats. Akaashi takes pity on him, and he decides to distract the teammates who seem to be too interested in whatever Bokuto is doing. That leaves the team’s ace to eat his sandwich in silence, hoping to hear back from Kuroo soon. He almost jumps when Kuroo finally texts him back.

From: Kuroo  
**Speaking of normal, how about dressing like a normal person? If you show up in another owl t-shirt I won’t let you in :p**

It’s difficult to understand if Kuroo really means what he just said. Sure, the emoji at the end of the text means that he should be joking, but knowing the type Bokuto can never be entirely sure with him. He’s smiling when, before he can even stop himself, he finds his fingers already typing a flirty reply.

To: Kuroo  
**Im 2 hot 4 u 2 handle**

Kuroo replies to that less than twenty seconds later.

From: Kuroo  
**We’ll see about that**

Bokuto blushes when he reads that text, and he decides that it’s time to stop answering. He has finished his lunch, and so have his teammates, meaning that it’s already time to get back to the gym for afternoon practice. He hides his phone once again, when he decides to distract himself by joking around with his friends.

His face still hurts, but the coach allows him to take part in the afternoon practice anyway. It’s enough to keep his mind occupied, away from thoughts of Kuroo and the date they’ll have in just a few hours. Trying his best to concentrate on the ball, Bokuto manages to spike with success every time the ball is sent his way, and he remains concentrated enough to avoid additional injuries.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is once again date day for these two morons. The question is: will they manage to make it work?  
> Thank you all for reading so far.

At home, getting dressed for his date, Bokuto is starting to panic. He’s found something good to wear, clothes that will make him look awesome and will leave Kuroo amazed by his gorgeousness. He still has a problem with the left side of his face, though, that’s turning from red to dark purple right under the eye. He didn’t have much time to keep the ice on it while at practice, considering that he played in the afternoon, so he tries to do it some more now that he’s at home, but it’s too little too late. There’s no way he’ll be able to get rid of the swelling, let alone the disgusting color of the bruise, before it’s time to leave.

“Moooooooom!” he yells, panicking while he runs around the house looking for his mother. The woman is reading a book on her bed when Bokuto enters his parents’ bedroom with watery eyes and a terrified expression on his face. She takes her eyes away from the pages of the book to take a look at her son, and she yelps when she notices the condition his face is in.

“What happened to you?” she immediately inquires, probably worried that he might have gotten hurt for real. “Volleyball to the face” he quickly replies. No time to explain, he needs to get to the point. “I have a date, I’m leaving in like 20 minutes, and I can’t go like this. Put makeup on my face, please hide this horrible thing!” he asks, hoping that his mother will be able to help him.

The woman seems conflicted between yelling at him for being reckless and laughing with relief because he didn’t suffer any serious damage. In the end she just agrees to help him. She applies foundation on his face, doing such a good job that the bruise is completely hidden. The problem, at this point, is that she used so much foundation that everyone could see that he’s wearing makeup. He just hopes Kuroo won’t notice it.

Bokuto gets dressed as fast as he can, then he leaves the house and quickly walks to the closest subway station. His legs are shaking the entire subway and then train ride to the suburbs, but luckily he always finds an empty seat and he manages not to fall. He spends most of the ride checking his phone, but there are no new texts from Kuroo. When he gets off the train - fortunately remembering the correct stop from the only other two times he’s been there, one to go at Kuroo’s and one to go at Kenma’s - for a moment he feels lost, not sure about where to go. Then he remembers that grandma Hanako-san has given him a piece of paper with directions, since he wasn’t sure to remember the way. For a moment, actually, he fears that he’s forgotten the directions at home, but then he finally finds them. They’re pretty easy to follow, and before he knows he’s outside the door of Kuroo’s house.

The moment he arrives, he immediately takes a deep breath. At first he contemplates the idea of turning back and running away, but he chases that thought away pretty quickly. He’s there, and he’s finally going on a real date with Kuroo. Whatever happens, he wants to see where they’ll end up. He checks the time, seeing that he’s five minutes early. Then he finally rings the bell and holds his breath. After a few seconds he can hear noise on the other side of the door, before it finally opens.

There, in front of him, stands Kuroo, more exquisite than ever. He’s wearing a dark red button-down shirt and black jeans. There’s a smirk on his face, but it somehow lacks the trademark confidence that Kuroo is usually sporting. It seems like, for some reason, he’s feeling insecure. Seeing him like that, however, Bokuto is the one who feels even more insecure.

He stays there with his mouth agape like a fish, looking at Kuroo without any idea of what to say. “Hey” Kuroo greets him, and Bokuto forces himself to smile without looking like he’s having a stroke; he barely manages. He realizes that he should say something too, but he can’t bring his lips to move enough to pronounce the word _hello_. He tries taking a deep breath, and when he lets it out he can manage to speak. “You look good” he says.

Kuroo takes a few seconds to scan Bokuto with his eyes, and Fukurodani’s captain feels naked under the scrutiny of his gaze. But he doesn’t say anything, he just waits for Kuroo to give him a comment on what he’s looking at, hoping he won’t notice the makeup. It takes a few seconds before Kuroo finally speaks. “And you’re wearing an owl. I should slam the door in your face” Nekoma’s captain finally states.

At those words, Bokuto looks down at his own clothes. He’s wearing a blue shirt with a pattern of leaves and a little owl embroidered on the breast pocket, and under that a normal pair of jeans. After spending a moment gazing at the owl, Bokuto raises his head again, a shit-eating grin painted on his face. “You said no owl t-shirts. This is a button-down” he affirms. This makes Kuroo burst out laughing, that terrible hyena-like laugh of his that Bokuto actually finds to be fascinating.

And with that, the ice is broken and they both look a little more comfortable. Kuroo steps aside, inviting Bokuto in, and he obliges, taking off his shoes at the entrance. Then, after Kuroo shuts the door again, the two of them are alone and the date is officially beginning. And with that, of course, the embarrassment as well.

They both remain silent for a while, probably not even Kuroo knows what to say in such a situation. Bokuto uses those moments of awkward silence to take a look around the living room where he’s standing, something he didn’t do the first time he was in that house. One of the first things he notices is that there are several pictures of the family scattered around the room. If only he had noticed that the first time, things between them would have gone an entirely different way, because the first picture he can see is one of Kuroo and his grandmother just sitting there on a nearby bookshelf.

He takes a couple of steps forward, in order to take a closer look at the picture. “I can’t believe I haven’t noticed this the last time I was here” he comments, leaning forward so that his face is at the same level as the picture.

Kuroo joins him in front of the picture and puts a hand on his back. “I’m sort of glad you didn’t” he says.

Bokuto freezes at that. If Bokuto had noticed the picture before, grandma Hanako-san would have known that the two of them knew each other. Meaning that she would have never talked to Bokuto about the troubles her grandson was going through, knowing that they were friends. They would have never started trying to help each other through Kuroo’s grandmother, and ultimately they would have never dated. It takes a few seconds for everything to sink in, but when he realizes what Kuroo is saying, Bokuto straightens up and looks at his friend with all the affection he feels towards him.

Before his eyes, Kuroo looks serious, but he’s also blushing a little. “You’re such a sap” Bokuto states to lighten the atmosphere, and it works, because a moment later they’re both laughing. Bokuto only stops when he finds himself with Kuroo’s arm around his shoulders.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this for real” the middle blocker says, leaning his head against Bokuto’s. At that, Fukurodani’s captain starts feeling insecure once again, mostly because he can’t understand Kuroo’s intentions from the tone of his voice.

“Is it a bad thing?” he asks. No matter how much he tries to stop himself, his voice comes out a little desperate.

Kuroo moves his head, positioning himself so that he’s looking Bokuto in the eye. “No. No, it’s not” he replies, a shy smile curving his lips. Bokuto feels himself melting at those words, because the true meaning behind them is now clear: Kuroo wants that date as much as he does.

From that position, so incredibly close, it’s impossible for Kuroo not to notice the makeup on Bokuto’s face. He frowns a little, taking a better look at the left side of Bokuto’s face. He even takes his arm away from Bokuto’s shoulders so that he can study Bokuto’s face from every possible angle.

“Why are you wearing makeup?” he finally ends up asking, amusement seeping through his voice. Bokuto is about to panic, but he does his best to stay calm, trying to think about something to say in reply.

“Well, you’re supposed to wear makeup on a date” he ends up saying on a single breath. That’s the first thing that comes to his mind.

Kuroo barely manages to hold his laughter, Bokuto can easily see that. “No, _girls_ are supposed to wear makeup on a date, not boys. Let’s try it again: why are you wearing makeup?” Kuroo insists.

Well, busted. Admitting defeat, Bokuto deflates. He can’t think of any excuse that might work, so he may as well tell the truth. “Because I took a volleyball to the face this morning and I didn’t want to show up for our date with a disgusting purple bruise on my face” he mumbles, looking at the floor.

His statement is enough for Kuroo to laugh so hard that he ends up coughing after a few seconds. Well, such a wonderful beginning for their date! Bokuto is about to start crying, when he hears Kuroo’s question. “Can I see it?”

Perplexed, he raises his gaze to assess Kuroo’s expression. His friend is still trying to stop laughing, but he seems to be sincere. He actually wants to see the bruise on his face. Even though Kuroo really seems to be curious, however, Fukurodani’s ace doesn’t want him to see it. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t. It’s gross” he says. He’s afraid that, seeing that bruise, the other would think that he’s ugly, or maybe just plain stupid for letting something like that happen, and kick him out.

Kuroo, however, is relentless. “Come on, let me see it. I want to look at your real face, not this mask you’re wearing” he states, leaving Bokuto speechless once again. Kuroo wants to see his face, notwithstanding the disgusting bruise. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?

Bokuto’s mood, that has been starting to dampen since the moment Kuroo noticed he’s wearing makeup, brightens once again. “Do you have some makeup remover?” he immediately asks.

Now it’s Kuroo’s turn to be perplexed, probably because of the stupid question: why would he have some makeup remover? “Sure, I use it when I dress in drag every other weekend!” Kuroo answers with sarcasm. Bokuto rolls his eyes at that, because just answering _no_ would have been way easier. “But I have that thing called soap. Go wash you face” Kuroo concludes, starting to push Bokuto in the direction of the downstairs bathroom. Without even trying to resist, Bokuto does as he’s told.

He washes his face, while Kuroo waits outside of the bathroom. After removing the makeup almost entirely, he looks at his face in the mirror and cringes. It’s definitely horrible, so he wonders if removing the makeup has really been a good idea. In any case, what’s done it’s done, and he can’t go back now. He takes a deep breath before exiting the bathroom and letting Kuroo see what he was trying to hide.

He can see Kuroo hold his breath for a few seconds. “Damn it Bo, you nearly broke your face!” Nekoma’s captain then comments. Bokuto’s eyes darken for a moment, but they brighten once again when Kuroo places a hand on his cheek. “Does it hurt?” he asks, gently passing his thumb under Bokuto’s eye.

Bokuto can feel his heart beat faster the more Kuroo touches his face, but he tries to keep calm enough to articulate a few words. “Only if you press on it. It mostly just stays there and looks ugly” he replies, a hint of a smile on his face.

Kuroo nods in understanding. “How did this happen? Did you get one of your moods during practice?” he inquires, a touch of worry in his voice. At that, Bokuto shakes his head, slightly leaning into Kuroo’s hand. “I was just distracted. Thinking about, you know, tonight” he admits, his face feeling definitely warmer.

The smile Kuroo gives him at this point is just sweet. The other boy cups both of his cheeks in his hands and keeps smiling. “There’s no need to get hurt over this. I’m nervous too, but it’s you and it’s me. Together we pulled off crazier shit than _dating_ ” Kuroo tries to lift Bokuto’s spirits. He succeeds.

Now feeling a lot calmer, Bokuto takes Kuroo’s hands in his. “Thank you… Tetsu” he says. He’s not even sure what he’s thanking his friend for, he just feels like he needs to do it. He sees Kuroo blush in an instant when Bokuto calls him by his name for the first time. Bokuto isn’t even sure himself why he’s done it, he just felt it was the right thing to do. And he doesn’t regret it, not when he can see Kuroo looking more beautiful than ever with his flushed cheeks.

After a few seconds of silence, Kuroo seems to recover from the shock. “Come on, let’s go eat. I’m starving” he states. He doesn’t let go of Bokuto’s hands, and they’re still holding onto each other when Kuroo starts pulling Bokuto towards the kitchen.

***

“What would you like to eat?” Bokuto asks while rummaging inside the fridge. He has several ideas of dishes he can cook with the ingredients at their disposal, but of course it will all depend on what Kuroo prefers. His intention, after all, is just to please Kuroo.

He freezes on the spot when, trying to take a look at what’s inside the fridge, Kuroo rests his chin on Bokuto’s left shoulder. In that position they’re incredibly close, and Bokuto knows that they’ve been way closer than that before, but now they’re on a date, a _real_ date, so that little touch is enough to make his heart try to break free from his ribcage.

“Surprise me” Kuroo whispers, too close to Bokuto’s ear for his comfort, before taking a couple of steps back. The moment Kuroo is out of his personal space, Bokuto is already feeling the loss. Having him so close makes him nervous, but at the same time it feels somehow _right_.

A few minutes later, Bokuto is cooking and Kuroo is watching him from a distance. They’re chatting about the training their teams are doing in order to be in the best possible shape at Nationals. It’s not what’s commonly known as a date conversation topic, but it works for them. It keeps the conversation flowing, and it also keeps Bokuto calm enough to be able to cook without risking to set fire to Kuroo’s kitchen. Grandma Hanako-san would be pretty disappointed in him if he did; it’s _her_ kitchen, after all.

When they’re finally sitting down to eat, slowly the topic of conversation starts shifting from volleyball to the two of them. “You know, there are a lot of things that make much more sense now” Bokuto starts to say when their meal is almost over, leaving Kuroo with a puzzled expression. He obviously isn’t following the other’s train of thoughts. “I mean, using your grandmother as a go-between for weeks saved us a lot of embarrassment, but there are things that can be explained now but couldn’t be explained then” he continues.

Kuroo’s silence is his cue to keep going. “I mean, like that time I cooked you dinner here. You said the recipe was the same as your grandmother’s. I said my grandmother taught me how to do it like that, but truth is that it was _your_ grandmother who taught me” he explains.

At that, Kuroo laughs, almost choking on the mouthful of rice he’s chewing. “I knew it! My grandmother is the only one who cooks it that way!” Nekoma’s captain finally says, talking with his mouth full and almost spitting rice all over the table.

“Yes well, I couldn’t find a reason why some old woman taught me how to cook something, so I said it was my grandmother” Bokuto continues, and Kuroo nods in understanding. “I can see why you didn’t want me to know that you’re taking cooking classes. You already told me about the fight with your girlfriend, enough embarrassing news for one day, right?” Kuroo states, and this time Bokuto is the one who nods.

“True. But it wasn’t just a fight, that’s actually the day I broke up with her” Bokuto adds to what Kuroo just said, leaving his friend perplexed. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought that she dumped you weeks after that!” Kuroo inquires.

Bokuto sighs for a second, before deciding to come clean. Well, he won’t tell Kuroo _everything_ , but it’s time to tell him at least part of the truth. “Because it was right after summer training camp, and that’s when I realized that I didn’t like girls at all. It was the first time I felt attraction towards a boy and I was so ashamed that I preferred if people thought I was still with her. That’s also the reason why Akaashi is the only one who knew from the beginning that I broke up with her and not the other way around” the wing spiker admits.

While he talks, Kuroo keeps eating in silence, his eyes glued on Bokuto. He seems a little pensive, but it’s clear that he’s listening. “It makes sense. But my grandmother only started talking to me about you weeks after that” Kuroo wonders out loud.

“That’s because I only told her about my own crisis like weeks after she told me about yours” Bokuto replies, before bringing his chopsticks to his mouth.

Kuroo sighs when hearing those words. “I still can’t believe how much shit she told you about me. A normal grandmother doesn’t blab all of her grandson’s secrets to a total stranger! But one thing is sure: I’m _never_ going to tell her _anything_ else in my life” he comments, shaking his head. Bokuto really can’t blame him, considering what happened.

“But look at things this way: I only told her about me because she told me about you. We would have never dated if she hadn’t told me” Bokuto states.

“True. And talking about dating. When you stood me up the first time, I never really believed you weren’t feeling well, I always thought you chickened out” Kuroo says, giving him a knowing smirk.

Bokuto blushes a little, now looking incredibly uncomfortable. “Well, I kind of lied about that day. I went there, but then I saw you, and I was like ‘hell no, I’m not meeting a guy I don’t even know in front of Kuroo’ so I ran” he explains.

While talking, they finish their dinner, so they keep the conversation going while clearing the table. “And you never thought you could have been meeting me?” Kuroo asks, a hint of curiosity in his voice. Bokuto shakes his head at that. “No way. There are like a thousand _Tetsu_ s in Tokyo, it never crossed my mind that it could be you” he replies.

“Fair enough” Kuroo comments “since there are a thousand _Kou_ s too, that’s why I never thought it could be you either.” Kuroo then takes a moment, probably to gather his thoughts, before he resumes talking. “That’s why I ran when I saw you at that restaurant.”

It takes a few seconds for that image to really sink in. Bokuto blinks a few times, because something really is making his head spin. He remembers being stood up pretty clearly. How upset he was, how humiliating it felt. He also remembers every word of his conversation with grandma Hanako-san after it happened, when she told him that her grandson saw the guy he liked and bolted. Yes, he’s sure the woman said that her grandson ran away because he saw that the boy he liked was at the restaurant on a date. But Kuroo just told him that he bolted because he saw _him_. Well, that’s unexpected.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After Bokuto's realization at the end of chapter 16, now we have the rest of the date.  
> Ready to see if they're complete idiots or if there's still a chance for them?

For a few seconds Bokuto stops breathing. Kuroo is too busy gathering the dishes on the table to notice how Bokuto stands still, frozen on the spot, his brain turned off and his lungs barely functioning. He’s not sure how he’s even on his feet, to be honest, because he feels his legs turn to jello.

“Wait a second” he finally manages to say, his voice probably a little too hoarse. Kuroo turns in his direction, an eyebrow raised. “Your grandmother said that you didn’t show up because you saw the friend you liked. Does it mean that it’s me? All this time you liked _me_?” Bokuto lets out, his voice shaky, his eyes begging. Is it really true, or is he imagining things?

He can clearly see Kuroo’s face go pale at his words, and the boy turn in the direction of the table once again. “Damn it, grandma! How much did she tell you?” he mumbles. Bokuto can feel that his friend is angry, probably hurt as well, and definitely scared. It’s true, then. It’s always been him.

Luck is on Bokuto’s side this time. The boy brightens, a wide smile illuminating his entire face, his golden eyes shining with happiness. Kuroo _likes him_. He takes a couple of steps forward, until he reaches Kuroo. His friend turns towards him once again when he’s in his personal space, probably to tell him something to justify himself. “Bo…” he starts to say, but Bokuto doesn’t let him finish. He can see confusion in the other’s eyes, when he brings both hands to cup Kuroo’s cheeks and just kisses him.

It’s quick, wild, and incredibly awesome. He can feel Kuroo stumble in surprise, probably about to drop the dishes he’s holding. But Bokuto doesn’t stop, he keeps pressing his lips against his friend’s. With his eyes closed, he tries to capture every possible detail of Kuroo’s taste. He mostly tastes like the dinner they just ate, by the way, not romantic at all but still the best thing in the world for Bokuto.

When they finally separate to breathe again, and Bokuto takes a step back, he’s beaming. He tries to name the perfect sensation he felt with Kuroo’s lips against his, but he can’t. He only knows that it’s the same he feels on the court, after an amazing spike, when the crowd stands up cheering for him and shouting his name. And even that can’t compare to the way his stomach somersaults at the sight of Kuroo’s confused eyes, and the change of expression on his friend’s face when he starts to get to the realization of what’s happening.

“What?” Kuroo tries to ask, putting the dishes back down on the table. Bokuto’s heart is beating like crazy.

“For me, it’s always been you” is all that Bokuto can say. He gives Nekoma’s captain a few seconds to process what his words are implying.

He keeps smiling while Kuroo steps forward, now standing in his personal space. There is a wicked smile on his friend’s face, his usual confidence now finally back in place. Kuroo wraps both arms around Bokuto’s waist, then leans forward to rest his forehead against Bokuto’s. “Well, this is a surprise. But it’s a good one” Kuroo states.

Bokuto closes his eyes and smiles. A moment later, however, his lips meet with Kuroo’s, and this time the kiss is slow. The two of them move tentatively one against the other, holding each other, lips trembling a little. Nekoma’s captain is the first one who tries to take it further, parting his lips and bringing his tongue to lick at Bokuto’s lower lip. The wing spiker’s breath is shaky, but he manages not to faint, as he parts his lips as well, bringing his own tongue to meet Kuroo’s.

Soon the kiss that started slowly begins to intensify, becoming more and more passionate. It doesn’t take long before the two of them are panting against each other, entirely out of breath yet not willing to separate. At some point, however, they have to stop. When they do, they take a moment to look into each other’s eyes. What Bokuto can see in Kuroo’s is pure affection. Does it mean that his friend has wanted this for a long time? Years, maybe? He can’t be certain about it, but what he knows for sure is that it’s been too long. It feel like it’s been too long for _him_ , that’s only liked Kuroo for a few weeks, so he doesn’t even want to imagine how it must be for the other boy.

Trying to take that image out of his head, Bokuto wraps both arms around Kuroo’s neck, pressing his face against his friend’s cheek. His bruised cheekbone hurts at the contact, but he doesn’t care, that’s not what matters at the moment. He can feel Kuroo take a deep breath and hold him even closer. He’s hugging Bokuto with enough strength to almost hurt, but Bokuto would never accept anything less than that.

They keep that position for a couple of minutes, just breathing each other in, then they get back to kissing. The dishes are forgotten, they probably won’t get to washing them at all that evening, and at the moment it doesn’t seem like a bad thing at all. They have a lot of lost time to make up for, and they intend to spend all of it kissing as if their lives depend on it.

***

The following morning, Bokuto wakes up to the feeling of soft lips pressing against different spots of his face, and a familiar voice calling his name. It takes him a few seconds to remember what’s happening, but after everything has time to sink in, he opens his eyes and smiles at Kuroo. He’s currently lying on the couch in his boyfriend’s living room, where the two of them have fallen asleep after a night of cuddles and kisses. Kuroo is kneeling on the floor beside him, but he stands up after making sure that Bokuto is awake. “We have company” Nekoma’s captain whispers, and Bokuto blinks in confusion.

What does that even mean? What company can they have? Then, a voice reaches his ears. “That looked uncomfortable, Kou-chan. Couldn’t you sleep in a bed like everyone else?” and Bokuto laughs. He jumps to his feet, still a little dizzy from having just woken up, and he settles his eyes on the old couple standing a short distance from the two boys. Bokuto has never seen the old man – who he supposes is Kuroo’s grandfather – before, and for a second they look at each other in confusion, before the woman decides to talk again. “Come on honey, be a dear. Please take our bags back to our bedroom, would you?” she tells her husband, and he just gives the entire situation another questioning look before grabbing two small bags and walking up the stairs with ease.

Once the man is gone, grandma Hanako-san smiles brightly to the two boys. “I take it that the date went well. I wasn’t expecting you to spend the night, Kou-chan” she says, smiling with affection at Bokuto. The boy mumbles something impossible to understand, that actually is a series of half words that make no sense together, staring at the floor. After everything that happened, after the way that woman meddled in his private affairs, he can still feel shy in front of her. It’s weird, actually.

Everything starts feeling better, however, when he feels Kuroo’s arms wrap around his torso, his boyfriend’s chest pressed against his back. “I just didn’t want to let him go” Kuroo states, a sly smile curving his lips. Bokuto blushes when the other boy starts nuzzling the left side of his face. Kuroo’s touch against the bruises feels uncomfortable, but at the same time it’s also grounding, and Bokuto would never tell him to stop. That gesture, however, seems to attract the woman’s attention as well, as Bokuto can see her eyes fix on the purplish bump on his face.

She brings both hands to cover her mouth in worry. “What happened to Kou-chan’s face? Have you boys been fighting?” she immediately asks. Both of them quickly shake their heads.

“I got hurt yesterday at volleyball practice” Bokuto is the first one to talk. “Yes, he was so focused on thinking about me that he couldn’t even see the ball flying at his face” Kuroo adds, letting himself go to an amused snicker.

Putting up a fake-offended pout, Bokuto wriggles out of Kuroo’s hold and shoves his boyfriend away, pressing a hand against his face. He doesn’t use any real strength, of course, because he’s clearly just joking. They’re both laughing when Kuroo’s grandmother walks towards them, and they only stop when she raises both hands, putting one on Bokuto’s right cheek and the other on Kuroo’s left. “I’m so happy for you boys” she states, and just by looking into her eyes Bokuto has no doubts that she’s telling the truth.

After that perfect awakening, it’s difficult for Bokuto to say goodbye to Kuroo and go back home. He knows, however, that his mother is probably going to kill him for spending the night out, considering that all she got from him was a text at midnight saying _sleeping at Kuroo’s_ without any explanation. The later he gets home, the angrier his mother will be, therefore he really needs to get going. He is, however, reluctant to stop kissing Kuroo.

“I really need to go but I don’t want to” ha manages to say in between kisses. “If I survive my mother’s wrath I’ll call you later though” he continues, feeling Kuroo smile against his lips.

“You better survive” this time Kuroo is the one speaking in between kisses. “You can’t die before I get inside your pants” he concludes, giving Bokuto a suggestive eyebrow waggle. They both burst out laughing at those words, and Bokuto is still giggling while he happily jogs towards the train station. After all, he wants to get inside Kuroo’s pants too.

***

The first few days of their relationship are surreal. Most of the time they keep joking as they always did, yet now something is definitely different. Because when they’re done with their jokes, now Kuroo tells him how much he wants to kiss him, and Bokuto blushes while replying that he’d like to kiss him too. They don’t have many possibilities to see each other, because both of their volleyball teams are practicing at every hour of every day, but Kuroo somehow manages to surprise Bokuto picking him up from cooking school on Thursday, nearing the end of the first week of their relationship.

That’s actually the first time they see each other after Bokuto left Kuroo’s house on Sunday morning, and he thinks it might feel weird at least a little, but when he’s the first one out of the building and finds a smiling Kuroo waiting for him, in Bokuto’s opinion there’s nothing that could ever feel more right. Without even thinking about what he’s doing, he runs to Kuroo and almost leaps towards him, wrapping both arms around his neck and kissing him hard enough to take both of their breaths away.

“Get a room” is the annoyed comment coming from behind Bokuto. He keeps his arms where they are, but he turns his head around enough to see Kumiko-chan standing there and looking pissed. He’s about to tell her something snappy, along the lines of _mind your own damned business_ , but Kuroo is quicker.

“We’re about to, actually. See you at school, Nasaki” Nekoma’s captain cordially says, leaving Bokuto stunned.

Fukurodani’s ace is about to protest, and that’s when his boyfriend just grabs his hand and starts leading him towards the subway station. “I could swear she wasn’t this rude when I was dating her” Bokuto comments while they keep walking. He’s obviously looking for his boyfriend’s support, and that’s why Kuroo’s next words surprise him.

“Cut her some slack, would you?” is what Kuroo says instead, leaving Bokuto bewildered.

“But she’s not getting any nicer!” the wing spiker complains.

“She’s leashing out because she’s hurting, Bo! She liked me, and I turned her down. When she got over me she liked you, and you ignored her for a week before you dumped her. Now we’re together, slamming our relationship in her face. She’s actually quite a nice girl, and that’s just her way to tell us that we hurt her” Kuroo explains. Bokuto has to admit that he never thought about the situation that way until he hears those words come out of his boyfriend’s mouth. That’s enough to dampen his spirit. He’s now staring at his feet while he keeps walking.

“I didn’t think of that. Now I feel sorry for her. I was really dumb for not getting it on my own” Bokuto comments. He feels Kuroo’s hold on his hand strengthen, letting him understand that his boyfriend is still with him.

“You’re not dumb, Bo. I’m just smarter than you” Kuroo affirms, gaining a light kick on his ass from Bokuto. That results in the two of them chasing each other and laughing until they get to the subway station.

By the time they say goodbye to each other and Bokuto goes home, he doesn’t see Kumiko-chan as a problem anymore. That’s the first time, however, that he realizes how many more difficulties they might be facing. The girl who liked them both and got hurt by them both is just the tip of the iceberg. What would their friends say if they find out? He can’t even imagine that. For now they’re doing their best to hide that relationship, but will they be able to do it forever?

They’ve only been together for two weeks when the first problems start to arise. A few second and third year volleyball players from both Nekoma and Fukurodani are planning to go to a nearby carnival on a Sunday, and both Bokuto and Kuroo are invited. How are they supposed to act with each other in front of their teammates? Bokuto would like to hold Kuroo’s hand and kiss him, but it might be too difficult when everyone could see. During that day out, all they manage to do is exchange a quick peck on the lips behind the haunted house, during the only five seconds alone they get the entire day.

It’s frustrating, especially because Bokuto is the most reckless of the two, and he tries to touch Kuroo’s hand on purpose while they walk side by side, but his boyfriend retreats his hands every time, shoving them in the pockets of his jeans. Bokuto doesn’t want to admit it out loud, but it hurts. Then, when it’s time to go home, they only say goodbye to each other with a friendly pat on the back, when all Bokuto wants is to hug his boyfriend and get lost in Kuroo’s scent.

That night he has trouble falling asleep. It definitely doesn’t help that, while he was talking to Kuroo on the phone from the safety of his own bedroom before going to bed, his boyfriend scolded him for trying to touch him in front of their friends. That’s enough to leave Bokuto unsettled.

***

The following day he still feels troubled by what happened at the carnival. He feels like Kuroo is ashamed of him, and he’s not sure of what he should do about it. Should he just let it go, or should he find a solution? At school, Akaashi can see that there’s something wrong with him, but Bokuto is quick to avoid any possible questions from his best friend. He doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he could tell him, after all, because Akaashi of course can’t know about Kuroo, and he’s sure he’ll slip up if he tries to talk hypotheticals.

Akaashi keeps insisting though, and at volleyball practice Bokuto ends up snapping at him. It’s not his intention to be aggressive with his best friend, of course. A few words he shouldn’t say just come out before he can stop them. Hearing Bokuto tell him to mind his own fucking business is enough to get the setter both worried and angry, but Fukurodani’s captain does his best to ignore the guilt raising inside him when he looks at his best friend.

He can’t be more glad for the end of volleyball practice. He’s the first one to run to the locker room after the coach announces that practice is over, and as soon as he’s done showering he leaves the school in a hurry. He’s lost in his thoughts for the entire subway ride to cooking school, catastrophic scenarios appearing in his mind. What if Kuroo doesn’t really want to be with him? What can he do to make sure that he does? And what if Akaashi now hates him for snapping at him?

Bokuto only gets back to the present when he hears someone calling his name. He focuses his gaze on Hiro-san, the guy always cooking at the station next to his. The man is smiling, and before Bokuto can even decide on a topic of conversation, the other is already asking him how things are going with his boyfriend. Apparently, everyone in their class knows that he’s finally dating grandma Hanako-san’s grandson for real, and they’re all curious about it. Bokuto would love to tell them all about it, but he’s not even sure what there is to tell at this point.

He’s pretty sure that Kuroo is trying to hide him. In addition to that, not knowing how to behave in public is making their dynamics feel forced. Is it normal that he feels awkward around his own boyfriend? He feels like their relationship was more natural when they were just friends. Is this a sign that maybe they don’t work as a couple? Because he really doesn’t want to go back to being just friends. And even if he wanted to, now it’s probably too late for that anyway.

That’s the reason why, when Hiro-san asks him about his relationship, Bokuto babbles a few disconnected words before excusing himself to go to the bathroom, saying that he really needs to make that stop before the beginning of class. It’s a lie of course, he just needs a moment to himself. He ends up just standing in the hallway, back against the wall and eyes on the ceiling. His entire life, Bokuto has always loved talking about himself. Now he just ran away instead of bragging about his relationship. What the hell is happening to him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that, they finally kissed! And they already managed to mess things up again. Yeah!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to the end... I still can't believe we already got this far!  
> As always, thank you for the feedback you're giving me and for your support.

When class is about to begin, Bokuto gets back inside the kitchen and tries his best to only concentrate on the recipe of the day. That is until grandma Hanako-san joins him as she always does. He doesn’t have anything against her, but this time he would love for her to just talk about food. Instead, she starts talking about her grandson. Of course.

“Tetsu-chan was in a bad mood yesterday when he got home. Did you two have fun at the carnival with your friends?” she asks, probably hoping that Bokuto could provide her with an explanation. The problem is that he doesn’t have an explanation, but he’d love to hear one too if possible.

He takes an entire minute to think before he answers. “Honestly? I have no idea” he admits, because it’s true. He’s not sure if he had fun at the carnival, and he sure as hell can’t tell if Kuroo did. Sure, Bokuto likes spending time with his friends, and he had a few good laughs with them, but things are a lot more complicated when it comes to his boyfriend. Therefore a distinction is probably due: Bokuto definitely had fun with his friends, but he didn’t have fun with Kuroo. How can he tell that to the old woman though? Therefore he sticks with his vague answer and hopes for the best.

He notices her nod her head, lost in thinking. She’s supposed to be helping him cook, but she’s actually just talking to him while he cooks on his own, the dish of the day starting to look pretty good actually. “Is something wrong between you boys?” she blatantly asks, leaving Bokuto frozen on the spot.

“Honestly? I have no idea” he replies once again. His voice is nothing more than a whisper, and he knows that, against his wishes, he’s clearly showing how much that answer makes him sad. The woman probably notices it too, and luckily she doesn’t press him any longer. He goes back to cooking in silence, grandma Hanako-san praising his skills every now and then.

***

On Tuesday, Bokuto and Kuroo decide to hang out after volleyball practice. They decide to meet halfway between their schools, and have dinner together before going home. At first, everything seems pretty normal. They both start smiling widely the moment they see each other from the distance, and the closer they get the faster they walk. When they’re standing one in front of the other, they hug tight and then they kiss. Everything seems perfect, the awkwardness of the previous days forgotten.

When Kuroo wraps an arm around his shoulders, face pressed against Bokuto’s hair as they walk together, the wing spiker finds himself thinking that maybe he has just been overthinking things, after all. They’re the same as always, bantering and shoving each other playfully, and then again kissing and smiling at each other.

Then, right before they say goodbye to go back home, Kuroo says something that leaves Bokuto speechless. “I’m glad we could hang out just the two of us. The other day at the carnival was weird, I had no idea of what to do” Nekoma’s captain explains.

Those words give Bokuto something to think about. Maybe he’s not the only one who is confused when it comes to handling their relationship. Apparently Kuroo is feeling the same way. He’s glad that he’s been able to come to that realization, because at least it means that Kuroo isn’t ashamed of him, that is what he was starting to believe. Now that he knows what the problem is, however, he should really try to fix it. If only he knew how.

He even tries to talk to his mother, the following day. He doesn’t tell her that he’s dating Kuroo, because he still hasn’t come out to his parents and he’d like to do it under better circumstances than asking for relationship advice. But he can at least tell her _something_ , hoping that it would be enough for her to tell him what to do.

“So, I have this person that I like” he introduces the topic, leaning against the kitchen counter while his mother is cooking dinner. “Is she pretty?” his mother asks before he can continue. It’s just a normal question, probably the first one that might come to mind when one’s son states that he likes someone. Still, Bokuto gets annoyed because that’s not the direction he wants the conversation to go. Especially because he’s not talking about any _she_.

“Not the point” he quickly states. “As I was saying, I like this person. We hang out together pretty often, sometimes alone and sometimes with other friends. When we’re alone things are usually fine, but when we’re with our friends sometimes it gets weird” he tells his mother. He can’t see the woman’s face, because she has her back turned to him, but he can swear that he’s hearing her giggle like a little girl. What the hell?

“Is she the one from your date, a couple of weeks ago? Because I thought that date didn’t go very well, when you texted me that you were sleeping at your friend’s house” the woman inquires once again, utterly ignoring her son’s embarrassment.

“Still not the point” the boy continues, annoyed. Is she even willing to listen to him? “Sorry Kou, please continue” the woman says, and Bokuto takes a deep breath before he lets his eyes land on his mother.

“What should I do?” he finally asks, hoping to hear his mother magically solve all of his problems. Which is impossible, since he hasn’t even told her what’s really bothering him. But how can he? He’s not sure how to tell his mother that he’s seriously falling for Kuroo, and that said boy is actually his boyfriend. Therefore there is no way he could tell her the truth about his troubles, and he needs to hope that the few vague hints he dropped will be enough for her to spring a solution out of nowhere.

He’s wrong, of course. “Do you think that she might like you back?” the woman asks, and Bokuto rolls his eyes. She’s his _mother_ , how can she not understand him? She should be able to read his mind and ease all of his doubts, because that’s what mothers _do_. Why can’t she, then? Well, probably because he’s not six years old anymore and sometimes he now has bigger problems than which flavor of ice-cream to choose. But whatever.

“You know what? Never mind, I’ll figure it out” he states. Then, with a sigh, he leaves the kitchen. Since his mother still won’t let him cook, and she doesn’t seem to be able to help him with some good relationship advice either, he has no real reason to stay in there anyway.

***

The situation is getting more serious than Bokuto would like it to be. That means it’s time to bring up what’s troubling him to the only person he can openly talk about it to. Sure, it’s probably going to be weird as hell, but he doesn’t have any alternatives. He’s pretty sure, however, that the only thing worse than telling Kuroo’s grandmother that he likes her grandson is letting her know that he’s worried about the direction their relationship is taking.

Even though he’s still a little reluctant, however, Fukurodani’s ace decides that on Thursday he’s going to talk to grandma Hanako-san. He ends up spending the first part of the cooking class of the day staring at the clock hanging on the wall behind Fujiko-sensei, wondering when the old woman is going to arrive. She usually gets there about halfway through the class, sometimes even much earlier than that. When Bokuto is impatiently waiting for her, however, she’s later than usual.

It’s only 30 minutes to the end of class when the group of four old ladies arrive. They greet Fujiko-sensei as always, and then they go looking for someone to help with their dish. Or at least three of them do it, while the fourth goes to sit by Bokuto without even bothering to look at what the others are doing. She smiles at him while she greets him, and the boy has to admit that seeing her there makes him feel a little better already.

After spending the entire day waiting for that moment to come, it’s finally time for Bokuto to ask what the hell he’s supposed to do with Kuroo now. He knows that’s his chance, but when the moment comes he’s unable to let the words out. That’s why he ends up asking something else entirely. “At home, does he talk about me?” is what comes out of his mouth. He blushes as soon as he realizes what he’s asked, because he’s aware of the fact that such a question makes him look like a pining idiot. But it’s not like he can rewind time and take it back.

The woman, however, probably finds his insecurity to be endearing, because she smiles brightly at him. “Don’t worry, Kou-chan, he really likes you. Of that I’m sure” she tries to reassure him, but it doesn’t really work; not entirely, at least. Because Bokuto knows that his boyfriend likes him, he can see it in Kuroo’s eyes when they’re together, just the two of them. The real problem is that they’re really awkward with each other when their friends are around, and he can’t understand if the problem is maybe because they don’t want anyone to know that they’re together.

“I know he likes me, I really do. And I like him too, you know, like a lot!” he starts rambling, hoping to find the right words to state what’s bothering him. “But sometimes I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when I’m with him” he keeps talking, chancing a look at the old woman beside him. He immediately notices that she’s staring at him with her eyes wide open, probably confused and surprised at the same time by his words. Only then Bokuto realizes that his phrasing could have been better. The way he said it, it seems like he has no idea of what a guy is supposed to do with his boyfriend. Which is ridiculous, because he knows all about the sex stuff, and he can’t wait to try everything. That’s definitely not what he meant when pronouncing those words.

With his face now bright red because of the embarrassment, Bokuto immediately turns in the direction of Hiro-san, working at the station next to his, to check if he heard. It doesn’t seem he has, though, because the man is still concentrating on the two pots in front of him, not sparing Bokuto a single glance. Well, it could have gone worse.

Once he’s sure that Hiro-san is not going to mock him until the end of eternity, he turns back towards grandma Hanako-san in order to better clarify his point. “I mean, there are times when everything between us is good, and other times that we’re just awkward. Especially if our friends are around. And I feel like I might lose him if I make the wrong move” Bokuto explains. After he finishes talking, he keeps his eyes on the woman, the vegetables he’s boiling completely ignored.

He’s hopeful, because grandma Hanako-san has been able to help the two of them before, so maybe she can help them now as well. It takes a while before she speaks, and when she does Bokuto lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. “Do your friends know that you’re together?” she asks, and Bokuto is already shaking his head with vigor before she can even finish. “Or at least that one of you might like the other?” she keeps going, and once again Bokuto is incredibly quick to silently tell her that no, no chance in hell that either of them told anything to their friends.

“Why?” she then asks, leaving Bokuto definitely perplexed. What does she mean with that question? It’s obvious why they haven’t told anyone about them, so the question should be _why would they_? The more he thinks about it, however, the more confused he gets. When she asked him why, it sounded like such a stupid question to him. But now, the more he dwells on it, the more he’s slowly realizing that actually there isn’t a real reason. Well, at least not one he can rationally think of. Bokuto knows that he’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed, considering that he finds most of the subjects at school to be disorienting, so maybe it’s just him anyway. Or is it possible that she’s actually making a good point?

“I don’t know” he whispers, embarrassed. People should always be able to explain why they decided to do – or, as in this case, _not_ to do – something. Bokuto, however, can’t give that explanation, meaning that maybe there isn’t a reason at all.

“Are you afraid that your friends will judge you if you come out?” the old woman asks, her voice low and serious. Once again, Bokuto finds himself wondering what reasons there are behind all of their secrecy. No, he’s not afraid his friends will judge him. Well, maybe he is a little, but not really. He _knows_ them, and they’re not those crappy people who point a finger at someone for being gay. Actually, he can think of a few friends who would be delighted to hear that he’s found someone, whoever that person might be. Sure, maybe Akaashi would be a little scared of what Bokuto and Kuroo can accomplish together, but ultimately his best friend would be happy for him as well.

“I don’t think our friends could ever judge us for being gay” the boy then states, gaining a little more confidence while he keeps talking. And he believes it as well. What’s the problem then? The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that there are no real reasons at all to keep their relationship a secret from their friends.

“Don’t you think that maybe unconsciously you are the ones who are judging themselves?” grandma Hanako-san tries to give him something more to think about. The problem, however, is that Bokuto can’t really grasp the point she’s trying to make this time. All he understands is that the woman probably thinks that they’re hurting themselves in some way. If that’s really the case, then he wants it to stop.

“What can we do about it?” he asks, worry in his voice. The old woman has only confused him even more until now, so he’d really love if she just told him what to do instead of leaving him to guess it for himself.

She seems to take pity on him, because she gently caresses one of his biceps. “You two should come out, tell your friends about your relationship. Maybe someone won’t like it, but at least you’ll be free. At that point you’ll see that all of that awkwardness will be gone, and you’ll only be left with the best part of being together” the old woman explains. With those words, a new world of possibilities opens in front of Bokuto. Maybe it might work for real. If their friends know about them, what else will they have to hide? Nothing, of course, meaning that they can just be themselves, and screw everything else.

Hearing the woman say it, the whole coming out affair seems like a pretty great idea. Bokuto, as always, doesn’t think that his actions might have negative consequences, he never does, so all he can think about is how coming out might solve all of his problems. He can tell his friends and family that he’s gay, and that he’s dating Kuroo, and everyone will be happy for him. Usually, coming out to everyone means encountering also the hatred of people who can’t understand what two people of the same sex can have together, but that thought never even crosses Bokuto’s mind at this point. He can only see the good in what he’s been suggested to do, and that’s what he concentrates on.

There is, however, still something worrying him. “Do you think that Tetsu will be okay with coming out as a couple?” Bokuto asks, because if Kuroo isn’t fine with that idea, of course he won’t tell a soul about the two of them being together. Even though now, to be honest, he can’t wait to lift that weight off his chest.

“That’s something the two of you will need to discuss together” grandma Hanako-san explains to him. Bokuto nods in silence, and after that he just keeps cooking until the end of class. That’s definitely something they’ll have to discuss.

***

Even though he really wants to talk to Kuroo about coming out, no moment seems to be the right one to bring it up. They still haven’t talked about it, not even once, after Bokuto had his epiphany while talking with his boyfriend’s grandmother. Nationals are getting closer and closer, and nothing has changed between them. Sometimes they’re happy, sometimes they don’t know how to act around each other. Bokuto might not be the brightest, but even he can see that Kuroo is probably having the same doubts he has. And that’s somehow comforting, because at least it means that they’re in the same boat, but at the same time it’s also frustrating, because if they’re having the same doubts probably each of them is waiting for the other to speak up first.

Bokuto knows that they really _can’t_ keep on going like that, but at the same time he has no idea of how to bring up the subject. In other words, things are getting worse, and Bokuto is afraid they might start escalating even more.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters left after this o_o I still can't believe I got this far.

Three weeks before the beginning of the Spring Tournament, Bokuto finds a great opportunity for himself. His parents are going out for a weekend, and his mother asks him to spend the night at Akaashi’s on Saturday; apparently his parents still don’t trust him enough to let him spend the night at home alone. He tells her that yes, he’ll do just that, and she has no reason to doubt him. But the truth is that he has other intentions entirely. It will be the first time he can really be alone with Kuroo since they started dating. Sure, they’ve had plenty of dates, and they’ve spent a lot of time together without their friends around. But they’ve always been in public places, or at Kuroo’s with his family somewhere else inside the house. They’ve never been alone inside an empty house for hours. Well, they have the night they got together, but they spent that night cuddling and kissing, which was good and everything, yet it isn’t enough anymore. They really need to take their relationship to the next level, and this will be the perfect opportunity to do it.

After promising his mother that he’ll spend the night at Akaashi’s when his parents won’t be home, Bokuto starts making arrangements of his own. He immediately texts Kuroo, a few days before the weekend, asking him to spend the night together on Saturday. Kuroo replies with a series of symbols combined together to form the rough shape of a penis. When he sees that text message, Bokuto laughs so hard that his phone slips from his grip and falls. A new crack appears on the screen, alongside a few others that are the result of previous falls. His phone, after all, is not in the best possible shape.

The fact that Kuroo sent him a penis, however, means that his boyfriend is thinking the same thing he is. After joking about it every time that they’re together, after imagining what it would be like for so long, they’re finally going to do it. For Bokuto, it won’t just be his first time with Kuroo, but it will be his first time _period_. He hasn’t even tried a little foreplay with Kumiko-chan, let alone anything more serious than that. And now, after laughing about getting in each other’s pants basically since the day they got together, they’re going to do it for real. It’s exciting, but also a little scary. Will Kuroo leave him if he ends up doing something wrong? What if volleyball is the only thing he’s good at and he sucks at sex?

The day after agreeing with Kuroo that they’re going to spend the night together, Bokuto is already feeling dejected about it. Sure, he’s still excited about the idea of spending that time together, but at the same time he’s afraid that he’ll do something stupid and ruin things for good. He’s so caught up in that line of thought that he doesn’t even realize that he has the perfect opportunity to talk to Kuroo alone about the possibility of coming out.

By the time Saturday comes, Bokuto is more nervous than he’s ever been before. He tries to stay focused on volleyball during the day of practice, but it’s not as easy as it seems. He hasn’t messed up this much during a single practice since the day he had his first real date with Kuroo; this time, however, at least he doesn’t take a volleyball to the face. But he gets scolded by the coach a few times nonetheless.

At one point, he even ends up hitting a powerful jump serve right in the back of Washio’s head. After that, Sarukui and Onaga have to step in and try to stop Washio from attempting to kill him, Konoha and Komi too busy laughing to land a hand. It’s finally the coach the one who stops the fight, when even Akaashi and the managers have failed.

When practice is over, Bokuto takes the subway home as usual. Akaashi is with him, as they take the same line like they do every time Bokuto actually goes home after school. “What was wrong with you today? I’m worried about you, Bokuto-san” the setter tries to ask, but his captain has no idea of how he’s supposed to answer that question. He stays silent for a while, then he takes a deep breath and displays a forced smile.

“I’m good, Akaashi, really good. Maybe just a little distracted?” he tries to reassure his best friend. The other boy, however, doesn’t seem to feel better after hearing his words. In fact he furrows his brows and tries to pierce Bokuto’s head with his stare.

“You’ve been distracted pretty often, lately” Akaashi points out. Bokuto isn’t sure about what to say at this point.

Sure, if Akaashi says that he’s been distracted a lot, then it means that it’s probably true. But it’s actually not his fault. It’s his relationship with Kuroo that sometimes gives him reasons to get distracted. What does that even mean? He’s never been unfocused on volleyball when he was with Kumiko-chan. And of course he has already ascertained that he’s never liked that girl even a fraction of how much he likes Kuroo, but realizing something like that is still pretty scary. He likes Kuroo enough to put the worries about their relationship, to put _him_ , before volleyball. And he never thought that he’d ever find someone who could be as important as volleyball to him.

“Bokuto-san?” Akaashi softly calls him after he’s been silent for too long. That’s enough to bring the wing spiker back to the present. At some point, lost in his own thoughts, he has lowered his head, staring at the floor of the wagon they’re on. After hearing Akaashi’s voice, however, he raises his head once again, setting his gaze on his best friend’s face. He swallows with difficulty.

“Akaashi, I think I’m in love” he states. He’s not sure where those words have just come from, but once they’re out he feels way better. His heart is racing, but mentally he feels somehow calmer. Is it true then? Is he really in love? He’s never been in love before, so there’s no way he’ll be able to identify the feeling easily. He can’t find any other words, however, to name what he feels when he thinks about Kuroo. And that’s what makes the situation even scarier. If he really is in love, it means that his boyfriend has the power to break his heart. And what if that awkwardness between them will bring them just to that?

That revelation makes Bokuto feel more certain, but at the same time it makes him feel more vulnerable as well. And that’s exactly what the expression painted on his face is showing now, enough that even Akaashi probably can’t understand what to do about it, based on his silent staring. The setter seems to be a little confused maybe, and Bokuto really can’t blame him for it. At the same time, however, he can’t give him any explanations either. He can’t tell his friend about Kuroo, because… well, it’s supposed to be a secret, isn’t it?

“Akaashi?” is now Bokuto’s turn to call his friend. There’s a hint of anxiety in the tone of his voice, because he desperately needs for Akaashi to say something.

“You’re in love, then? Is it with volleyball or with an actual person?” the younger boy manages to ask, coming back to the conversation.

“With an actual person” Bokuto’s voice is low, difficult to hear, and Akaashi has to lean towards him in order not to miss those words.

“Who is she?” the setter tries to ask, but his captain shakes his head. No, there is no way he’ll say that out loud.

“It’s a secret” he only replies. Luckily for him, Akaashi doesn’t have the time to press him on the matter, because a moment later the subway stops at the station where Bokuto is getting off. They quickly say goodbye to each other, and it’s finally time to walk home. Fukurodani’s ace checks the time on his phone; Kuroo will be there in one hour. He has preparations to do.

***

Bokuto checks the time. Kuroo will be there in five minutes, and he’s excited about it. The house looks presentable, and he even tidied his bedroom. Sure, he couldn’t do miracles in just one hour, but at least now it looks like a room where he can invite his boyfriend without having to feel ashamed. When he hears the doorbell ring, he almost jumps in surprise, his heart racing like crazy. “Calm down… just calm down. It’s only Kuroo” he whispers to himself while crossing the living room towards the entrance door. It doesn’t work though, because he fact that it’s Kuroo isn’t calming him down at all. On the contrary, it’s making him more nervous.

His arms are shaking and his hands are a little sweaty when he opens the door, even though it’s December and the temperature is pretty low. On the other side of the door, Kuroo is giving him a lopsided grin, and seeing that makes Bokuto feel better immediately. Without even thinking about what he’s doing, he throws himself at his boyfriend, hugging him and kissing him, almost sending him crashing to the floor. Luckily for them both, Nekoma’s captain has good enough reflexes to stay on his feet while supporting Bokuto’s weight as well.

“Are you even letting me in?” the middle blocker asks, and only then Bokuto notices that he has in fact jumped at his boyfriend before giving him the time to get inside. That’s when the wing spiker takes a couple of steps back, leaving Kuroo enough room to really walk past the door.

Now that he thinks about it, that’s not the first time Kuroo has been to his house, but the previous one dates back to when they’ve first become friends, in their first year of high school. Well, many things are different now, starting with the fact that now he’s afraid that Kuroo might judge him based on whatever he sees inside the house, or even more inside his room. It’s a stupid thought, because they’re together, meaning that his boyfriend would never do something like that. These thoughts, however, don’t stop Bokuto from feeling worried at least as much as he’s excited, while he watches Kuroo take off his shoes and jacket in order to properly enter the house.

At first, once Kuroo is settled in, they hug for a pretty long time. It’s something they always do now, every time they see each other; those hugs are Bokuto’s favorite moment, because when they hold each other every worry goes away. And this time is no different. That’s probably because theirs are definitely not loose hugs, and there’s absolutely nothing sweet in the way they’re holding each other. They’re squeezing each other in a very possessive way, using so much strength that it hurts. Feeling his body pressed so close to Kuroo’s that he can hardly breathe, however, can ground him more than anything else. When they finally let go of each other, Bokuto takes a deep breath and soon realizes that he’s feeling way better now.

“I really needed that” Bokuto admits with honesty. After saying those words, he can see a wicked smile appear on his boyfriend’s lips.

“You’re such a sap…” Kuroo comments, making Fukurodani’s captain fold his arms and pout like a child. “What, are you trying to look cute? Because you’re definitely failing at that” Nekoma’s middle blocker taunts him, making Bokuto pout even more. Of course he’s not really offended, he’s only joking, just like he knows that the other boy is joking too. They’ve bantered like that since the day they became friends, and they’re never going to stop doing it even though they’re now together.

Kuroo is laughing at Bokuto’s reactions to his words, making him feel the need to do something stupid to distract the other. That’s how he leaps forward, grabs Kuroo’s head with both hands and licks his boyfriend’s face, tongue flat on the other’s cheek in order to wet him as much as possible with saliva. After doing that he immediately steps away, laughing. He only has a moment, however, in which Kuroo cleans his face with a sleeve of his hoodie, before his boyfriend gives him a murderous stare. Without stopping his laughter, Bokuto sprints towards his bedroom, Kuroo running after him trying to catch him.

Unfortunately, Bokuto has to stop for a second in order to open his bedroom’s door, and that’s when Kuroo catches up with him. He tackles Fukurodani’s captain, making them both lose their footing. They end up falling on the bed, wrestling for dominance. At the beginning Kuroo is probably trying to make Bokuto pay for licking his face, but after a couple of minutes they’re both just fighting and laughing. In moments like that, being together feels like the easiest thing in the world. Bokuto selfishly wishes that things could always be that easy, every moment of every day. Just him and Kuroo, messing around and having fun for all of eternity.

Bokuto is lying on his back, struggling. Above him, Kuroo is trying to playfully strangle him. That’s the reason why Bokuto’s hands are wrapped around Kuroo’s wrists, trying to keep his boyfriend’s reach away from his neck. Even though they’re both almost out of breath, they’re still laughing. Soon, however, Bokuto manages to kick the other boy on a leg, not hard enough to hurt, but causing enough surprise to catch Kuroo off guard for a moment. He takes advantage of the situation and reverses their positions.

Kuroo is now the one with his back on the bed, Bokuto straddling him. Neither of them realizes that Bokuto’s hands are still around Kuroo’s wrists, until Nekoma’s captain finds himself with both arms pinned to the mattress, and Bokuto leaning forward until they’re almost close enough to kiss. That’s the moment they both realize the compromising position they’re in, and they immediately stop moving. Now they’re just looking into each other’s eyes with passion and desire. There’s nothing Bokuto would love more at the moment than to take Kuroo like this, losing himself in the gaze of the person he recently realized he’s in love with.

He slowly leans down a little more, until their noses are almost touching. “You’re gorgeous, Tetsu” he says in awe, and there’s nothing more true than that. With his face a little flushed because of the effort made while wrestling on the bed, Kuroo is the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen. “I can’t believe you’re mine” he adds, before eliminating the distance separating them and kissing Kuroo. The kiss is slow and gentle, and Bokuto closes his eyes in order to savor it the best he can.

When they separate once again, Bokuto’s face feels hot. And he blushes even more when, reopening his eyes, he catches a glimpse of the smirk that his boyfriend is sporting. He gives the other a questioning look, trying to find out what that expression means, and as a reply Kuroo thrusts his hips upwards, grinding into Bokuto. The sensation they get from that small movement is enough to make them both moan. Uncertain, Bokuto tries to copy that movement, causing another surge of pleasure in both of them.

“I want you, Bo” Kuroo states, basically punching all of the air out of Bokuto’s lungs with just a few words. This is probably it. This is when they’re finally going to do it. Bokuto is uncertain, his arms and legs shaking a little, but he tries to steady himself and give his boyfriend a smirk of his own, before kissing him again.

***

It’s the first time for both of them, Bokuto soon finds out. They’re naked, completely entangled, sweaty, and he’s sure that there’s nothing better in the entire universe. What kind of sensation can ever compare to fusing their bodies together? They’re a little hesitant at first, probably they’re both unsure of what they should or shouldn’t do to make the other feel good. Soon, however, they finally let go of all the worries and just enjoy the moment. There’s passion in their act, in the strong grip they have on each other’s bodies, but their movements are slow, careful. Being together like that feels like the most obvious thing in the world to Bokuto.

When everything is over they’re both spent, but also incredibly happy. They’re still entangled on the bed, still naked, holding each other while they try to catch their breath. Bokuto feels the need to tell Kuroo that he loves him, because for him there’s nothing more true than that at the moment. He opens his mouth to speak, but before any sound can come out, Kuroo is the one who talks.

“I wish we could be like this every day” Nekoma’s captain states, reinforcing his hold on Bokuto before planting a kiss of the wing spiker’s forehead. Bokuto’s hair is a mess because of the way that Kuroo has grabbed it during sex, and it now falls untidily on his forehead; Kuroo’s bedhead is the same as ever.

Bokuto snuggles closer to his boyfriend, smiling at the other’s words. And that’s the first time it occurs to him that being completely alone means that they can finally talk about that specific subject that’s been bothering him for a while now. He takes a deep breath before directing the conversation where he wants it to go.

“Maybe we can, if we stop hiding from our friends” he says. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of sex emanating from his boyfriend.

“I don’t think we’re really hiding. We’re more… being private?” is Kuroo’s reply. That, however, makes Bokuto shift uncomfortably until he manages to lift himself on an elbow to better look at the other’s face.

“Look, sometimes we’re perfect together, but other times we’re just weird. And I think the problem is that nobody knows about us” Bokuto explains. He looks a little confused, but he really isn’t. He definitely knows what he’s talking about. It’s the same topic he talked about with grandma Hanako-san, and what he’s saying is just a consequence of that discussion.

“What are you talking about? A lot of people know about us! Your entire class at cooking school knows. Including your ex-girlfriend and _my grandmother_. I think that’s plenty of people already” is the reply he gets. He can see that Kuroo is uncomfortable at the moment, and he’s probably just trying to convince Bokuto of something he doesn’t believe himself.

“But what about our friends? Akaashi is my best friend, and I want to tell him all about how happy I am to be with you. He’s getting suspicious because I’m hiding things from him, and he knows that I’m a shitty liar” Bokuto’s words are accompanied by a childish pout. Often people refer to him as a simpleton, and maybe it’s true, but he’s not so stupid that he doesn’t understand his behavior is changing, making Akaashi grow more suspicious by the day.

When he finishes talking, he can see that Kuroo is now staring at him in shock. “Are you talking about coming out? Are you even aware of what it means?” the middle blocker asks.

Hearing those words, the boy chews on his bottom lip, uncertain. “It means that I can kiss you when we’re with our friends too” he replies with innocence.

“Are you sure? Like _really_ sure?” Kuroo asks, and Bokuto silently nods. They keep looking at each other for a few more seconds, before Nekoma’s captain speaks up again. “I think I want a few more people to know, too. I mean, I’m dying to see Kenma’s face! But maybe we can do it gradually, just telling a few people at a time?” he suggests.

Fukurodani’s ace feels his eyes brighten the moment he hears those words. “Yes! I can start with Akaashi. And maybe my parents. I don’t know, I think they’ll freak out, but not in a bad way…” the starts rambling, making Kuroo smile. He only shuts up when he feels his boyfriend’s hand caress his face. He looks into Kuroo’s eyes, and he can read a profound affection there.

“Whatever makes you happy, Bo” Kuroo comments, and now more than ever Bokuto needs to tell him how much he loves him. When he opens his mouth to speak, however, no words come out. Therefore he just ends up smiling and resting his head on his boyfriend’s chest.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer and closer to the end... Next Monday the last chapter will be out, so I hope you'll like these last two chapters.

On Monday morning, Bokuto is excited. He bounces like a volleyball on his way to school, and the moment he sees Akaashi he immediately starts running towards his best friend, hugging him as soon as he reaches him. The setter doesn’t seem to be perplexed because of those actions, he’s clearly used to Bokuto being insanely loud so early in the morning, but it doesn’t mean he’s happy about it either. He just gives his captain a very eloquent stare, that Bokuto decides to ignore.

“I need to talk to you. It’s very super important, I swear!” Bokuto exclaims while bouncing up and down, without letting go of his friend the entire time.

Akaashi sighs, bringing both hands to where Bokuto’s arms are wrapped around his neck, trying to free himself from that vise-like grip. He fails. “Okay, but can you please let go of me?” the setter asks.

Bokuto really doesn’t want to, because he’s so excited at the idea of finally telling Akaashi everything. No more hiding, no more feeling awkward while talking to his best friend. He can finally come clean, and he’s sure that Akaashi will be happy for him. Therefore he lets go of the other boy and calms down a little, a severe look in his eyes, trying to convey that the situation is indeed a serious one. Even without a single word exchanged, he knows that he has Akaashi’s attention.

“A few days ago, I told you that I thought I was in love with someone. Well, it’s true, I really am in love, but it’s more complicated that what you can imagine” he starts, probably confusing Akaashi with his words. The setter, however, keeps silent, listening to everything he has to say, and Bokuto is grateful for that. “The truth is that I recently realized I’m gay” he continues, and this time he can see a reaction on Akaashi’s face. The boy just widens his eyes in surprise. He doesn’t seem to be disgusted or enraged; he seems more genuinely surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting a revelation like that to arrive, that’s all.

Bokuto chews on his bottom lip for a few seconds, looking for the right words to continue. “I have a boyfriend now, and he makes me really happy. It’s like he’s my soulmate, or something. It’s weird, I’ve never felt this way before, but I think he’s everything I ever wanted” he stops after saying those words, pleading eyes staring at Akaashi now, silently begging him to say something. Something good, if possible.

The setter, however, remains speechless for a few more seconds before he can regain his usual calm. He even hints a smile. “I have to admit that I would have never expected that. But if you’re happy, I can only be happy for you” he finally states. A huge smile appears on Bokuto’s face after hearing those words. He was right, then. Akaashi really is happy for him. Before he can even realize what he’s doing, Bokuto is hugging his best friend once again.

“Thank you thank you thank you! I really wanted your approval!” Bokuto admits, feeling a lot lighter now that he’s taken such a weight off his chest. Akaashi smiles, raising a hand to awkwardly pat Bokuto’s back. That tentative reaction, however, doesn’t worry him: Akaashi has always been uncomfortable when forced to deal with his enthusiasm. But he doesn’t back off either, meaning that it’s still something he can somehow accept for the sake of their friendship.

“You really are more radiant than usual, Bokuto-san. I’m starting to get curious to meet the boy who did this to you” Akaashi comments, a hint of a smile appearing on his face. That’s when Bokuto’s grin becomes more mischievous.

“Actually you already know him” Fukurodani’s captain states, smiling at the setter’s perplexed expression. At the moment, Akaashi is probably trying to imagine which one of their other friends is secretly into guys and willing to date _Bokuto_ , of all people. “It’s Kuroo!” Bokuto then announces with a smile, witnessing the expression on Akaashi’s face quickly turn into one of fear.

“That’s just...” Akaashi starts, but he doesn’t finish. Bokuto, however, is pretty sure that his friend is about to say that the two of them together are dangerous, or something like that. He finds it funny that his setter is so worried every time he decides to plot something with Kuroo: it’s not like they ever got themselves arrested! Yet, at least.

Even though Akaashi seems to be pretty worried, he never finishes expressing his thought, and his captain is grateful for that, meaning that his affection towards Bokuto means more than the scare he can get when Kuroo comes up with a stupid-ass plan and Bokuto immediately follows him. Fukurodani’s setter, however, exasperatedly rolls his eyes before letting go of a sigh. “If a boy is supposed to be your soulmate, then I guess that nobody makes more sense than Kuroo-san” Akaashi admits, rubbing his face with a hand as a stress relief. Oh yes, that knowledge is probably going to provide Akaashi with a lot of headaches in the future, because if Bokuto and Kuroo were crazy and reckless together _before_ being a couple, what could they accomplish now?

Bokuto laughs at the thought of what his boyfriend might plot in the future in order to put Akaashi’s patience to the test even more.

Later, when he sits in class refusing to listen to his teacher, Bokuto texts Kuroo.

To: Kuroo  
 **I told Akaashi. Think he’s afraid of us now. Should have seen his face. Priceless**

It only takes less than a minute before he receives a reply.

From: Kuroo  
 **:D I would have paid good money to see that!! I think I’m gonna tell Kenma soon. Text you later**

Chills run down Bokuto’s spine. They’re really doing it, they’re really telling people that they’re together. Everything now feels more _real_ than ever, and that’s definitely a sensation that he likes.

***

After telling his secret to Akaashi, Bokuto feels better immediately. He’s not sure about telling the rest of the team yet, because after all he agreed with Kuroo that they were going to tell only a few people at a time, but he knows for sure that he wants to tell his mother. And his father as well, even though his mom comes first.

For the remainder of the day, Bokuto is in a very good mood. He excels at volleyball practice, and he even manages to make grandma Hanako-san proud by cooking a perfect dish entirely on his own without even making much of a mess of his cooking station. In the evening, when he finally gets home, he’s still full of energy, to the point that he even toys with the idea of going outside and tossing a volleyball around for a couple of hours. His mother, however, is the one who stops him before he can run out right after eating dinner.

“You sure are cheerful, Kou” she comments, a gentle smile on her face. Seeing her like that, Bokuto wonders if that’s the right time to tell her. In the end, he decides to try.

“Mom, can we talk for a moment? It’s a serious matter” he starts. The woman looks worried hearing those words, but she immediately nods and takes his hand. Together they go sit on the couch in the living room, slightly turned towards each other in order to be able to talk.

She asks him what’s wrong, and he takes a deep breath. “I’m gay” he suddenly blurts out, his face then contracting in a worried expression while he witnesses his mother’s reaction. The woman’s mouth moves to form the shape of an O, clearly surprised. She stays silent for a little too long, though.

What if she’s disgusted? What if telling her was a mistake after all? Bokuto is about to start panicking when he feels a small, warm hand cupping his cheek. “You’re my baby, and I’ll always love you for exactly who you are” she states, making her son’s eyes go wet with unshed tears of joy. With a quick movement, he wraps his arms around his mom, almost suffocating her because of how he’s engulfing her in his embrace.

After that, she asks him if he has a special boy, and when he says that yes, he has a boyfriend, she wants to know everything there is to know about him. Happily, Bokuto starts telling her about Kuroo, about how he realized his feelings towards his friend have become more than just friendship, how they got together, how over the moon he feels with him. In all honesty, he has to admit he’s never seen his mother happier or more proud of him before.

When they finish their conversation, it’s time for him to go to sleep. Once in bed, however, he texts Kuroo to inform him on his latest news. His boyfriend sends him a text only made of smiling faces and hearts when Bokuto lets him know that, after telling his mother all about their relationship, she said she might be in love with Kuroo.

***

Kuroo ends up telling Kenma the following day. Bokuto laughs out loud when he receives a text from his boyfriend saying that Kenma choked when he heard the news. Kuroo’s best friend since childhood, however, isn’t in any way opposed to their relationship, even though apparently he shares Akaashi’s worries, at least according to what Kuroo says.

Now that both of their best friends now about them, however, a new world of possibilities opens up before them. That’s how they decide to go out for some hot drinks on Sunday afternoon, two weeks before the beginning of Nationals. It will be the first time they’ll be together as a couple in front of some of their friends. It’s definitely going to be an entirely new sensation, and Bokuto can’t wait to see how it feels.

The entire subway ride with Akaashi sees Fukurodani’s ace being as loud as ever, with his best friend sighing beside him, trying to hide from the stares of the people around them, attracted by Bokuto’s chaotic behavior. When they finally reach the correct station, Akaashi wraps himself more in his jacket and puts both hands in the jacket’s pockets, before following Bokuto out of the subway at a reasonable pace. His captain, of course, is running. The air is cold, and their breaths come out in small clouds of heat when they exit the station. The wing spiker, however, doesn’t seem to be bothered by the temperature at all. On the contrary, he’s so excited that he can barely even feel the cold.

Right outside the entrance of the subway station, however, the two of them stop. They look around, but there’s still no trace of Kuroo and Kenma. Akaashi checks the time on his phone, while Bokuto furrows his brows. He really wanted to find them there already waiting. “They’re late” he states, his voice sad. He’s starting to get dejected, even though a moment ago he was ecstatic. His friend has to pat his back to attract his attention. Pouting like a child, Fukurodani’s captain turns towards Akaashi, giving him puppy dog eyes.

“They’re not late, Bokuto-san. We’re just early, that’s all” the setter tries to let him understand. It takes a few seconds, but those words slowly seem to sink in, making Bokuto feel a little better.

“But I wanted them to be here already...” he whines, causing his best friend to roll his eyes.

“I’m sure they’ll be here any moment. Why don’t we go back inside to wait for them? It’s freezing out here” Akaashi suggests, and slowly his captain nods. Bokuto can feel his friend’s hand touch is back and gently push him forward, when they make their way back inside.

At that point, they only have to wait for five more minutes before they see Kuroo and Kenma make their way towards them, after arriving with a different subway line. Kuroo has both hands in the pockets of his jeans and a shit-eating grin on his face. Beside him, Kenma is dressed as if he was going to the North Pole, his face barely visible under the wool hat and scarf he’s wearing. Nekoma’s setter is playing a videogame while walking, his eyes never leaving the screen. Bokuto almost laughs when noticing that, even though he looks like a fat Eskimo because of all the layers he’s wearing, Kenma has no gloves because they would most likely get in the way of his gaming, and his hands look slightly purple.

Bokuto’s attention, however, only stays on Kenma for one second, because his gaze immediately darts back to his boyfriend. They lock their eyes for a few seconds, huge smiles growing on both of their faces as Kuroo and Kenma advance towards their location. When the other two are close enough, Bokuto darts in their direction. It only takes five running steps before he throws his arms around Kuroo’s neck, pressing his forehead against his boyfriend’s. He doesn’t even have time to blink, and Nekoma’s captain has both arms wrapped possessively around his waist. As always, they’re holding each other with maybe too much strength, because the grip almost hurts, but neither of them seem to care.

Startled by Bokuto’s quick approach, Kenma pauses his game and raises his head, a surprised expression on his face while he looks and the two greeting each other in what has recently become their usual way. “Don’t you two ever dare hug anyone else like that, other people’s spines would break” the setter states. Hearing those words, Bokuto turns his head slightly to the side, still keeping it pressed against Kuroo’s, in order to take a look at Kenma. As soon as his eyes fall of the younger boy’s face, he bursts out laughing, finding the other’s expression incredibly funny. Kenma snorts, maybe offended by his reaction, before going back to his game while walking towards Akaashi to say hello.

Once Nekoma’s setter is out of his field of view, Fukurodani’s captain concentrates on his boyfriend once again. That’s when the two of them kiss. It’s nothing more than a peck on the lips, but it’s slow and sweet. And, most of all, it’s the first time they do it in front of their best friends. The other two boys, however, don’t seem to have any reactions at that, as Bokuto can hear them chatting about nothing in particular a few steps away. The fact that they’re not receiving any negative reactions is invigorating, and that’s why they dare to kiss again, this time taking their time to savor the moment, smiling against each other’s lips.

When their greetings are over, they finally separate from their bone-crushing hug, this time reversing to something more normal like holding hands. They turn towards the two setters, so that each of them can properly greet the other’s best friend, only to find the younger boys staring at them, Kenma always keeping an eye on the game he still hasn’t stopped playing. Bokuto raises an eyebrow in confusion. “They look weird” Kenma comments towards Akaashi with a conspiratorial tone. “We’ll get used to it, I suppose” Fukurodani’s setter replies, shrugging.

Both Bokuto and Kuroo turn to look at each other after hearing the words pronounced by their best friends, and after a moment of silence they’re both laughing. Neither of them gets offended by those statements, because each of them knows his own best friend well enough to be certain that they meant no harm or insult. They both just need to get used to the new situation, but they’ll get there in no time. In the meantime, however, both Bokuto and Kuroo can expect a little of friendly mocking on their part.

When those initial moments are over, the four of them decide to head out of the station and towards a nice tea house in the area. The entire time, Bokuto and Kuroo walk in the front, swinging the arms that end with their connected hands. Nekoma’s captain slightly drags his feet while he walks, in that kind of swagger that always makes him look a lot cooler. Bokuto is skipping a little by his side, making Akaashi chuckle while he follows behind them. Walking at Akaashi’s side, Kenma never raises his head from his PSP.

In the meantime, however, the four of them are talking, if what they’re having can even be called a conversation. The truth is that Fukurodani’s captain is excitedly listing the kinds of tea he’d like to try, and his boyfriend is explaining to him how they’re supposed to taste, all while the two setters wonder out loud about what the hell Kuroo is saying. Nekoma’s captain keeps insisting that red tea tastes like bacon; he’s obviously just making fun of Bokuto, who believes him though.

After reaching the tea house, they all sit down in a booth in the corner, a bit out of sight. They make their orders, even though it takes Bokuto a lot longer than the others to decide, and when they receive their smoking hot teas they all start drinking. Even Kenma puts his videogame away, in order to enjoy the beverage with his friends. In the meantime, they keep chatting about volleyball, the only topic of conversation that can really get all of them involved and keep them all interested. The two Nekoma players ask questions about Nationals, since it will be their first time there, and both Fukurodani players are glad to answer their questions, since they’ve both been there before.

During the entire conversation, Bokuto and Kuroo are sitting pretty close to each other, elbowing or shouldering each other in a playful way from time to time. Even though they’re together now, the way they act around each other hasn’t changed much from when they were friends; the main difference is that now they hold hands and kiss. Akaashi seems to find their behavior funny, because he keeps giving them that hint of a smile that Bokuto knows well, which means that the setter is actually pleased with the situation. It can only make him happier.

“There’s something you haven’t told me, Bokuto-san” Akaashi starts while drinking the last of his tea. Kenma has already finished his own a few minutes ago and has gone back to his videogame, while both Bokuto and Kuroo are still drinking, and at some point they have even switched their cups. His best friend’s opening gets Bokuto’s attention, because the boy silently uses a slight gesture of his head to signal the other that he can keep talking. “If you were hiding your sexuality from everyone, how have you two gotten together?” Akaashi finally asks.

Hearing his question, Bokuto turns towards his boyfriend, finding the boy watching him in return. They both grin at each other. “That’s a pretty embarrassing story, actually” Kuroo is the first one to talk, looking from his boyfriend to their best friends.

“Yours is embarrassing, mine is super cool. I’ll tell it!” Fukurodani’s wing spiker immediately jumps in. At that point, all of them get comfortable, and Bokuto starts talking.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this chapter, today, is for me a HUGE milestone: it's the first time in my life that I manage to finish posting a chaptered fic! ~~let's not count the one I wrote 15 years ago that was 6 chapters long and took me almost 4 years...~~ I usually abandon stuff while I'm writing, but this time I only started posting once I had already finished writing it, so I have to admit that it was easier posting it. And speaking of which. This is also the first time I manage not to skip even a single scheduled update. Seriously, the readers of this story are witnessing history being made here! XD
> 
> Going back to a more serious matter... IT'S THE LAST CHAPTER! It feels like yesterday that I started posting this, but it's already been _months_. I would love to thank everyone who followed me in this journey from the start, as well as the people who started reading later on. And a special thank you also to those who will find and read this story once it's already over.
> 
> Now that this is over, I'll still keep posting weekly chapters of the other Bokuroo I have ongoing ( _Please, let me watch you_ , rating Explicit), but next week I will also start posting the first chapter of a new Bokuroo story. The new one will be way shorter, updated once a week, and it will showcase how bad I am at writing humor. ~~And once the easy stories are out of the way, I'll start posting the heavy ones, because I have a couple of those as well...~~
> 
> All of this said... enjoy the ending! ^_^ I know that this chapter is a little shorter than the others, but I didn't want to ruin it by trying to add something else that wasn't in my original plan. I hope you'll like it anyway.
> 
> Oh, and before I forget: this is also where we find those "minor manga spoilers" I warned you about in the first chapter.

"So I met this very nice old lady in cooking school" Bokuto starts his tale, but he immediately has to stop when he hears Kenma failing to hide a quick laugh.

"Cooking school? Seriously?" the boy asks, and only then Bokuto realizes that Kenma is the only one around that table who didn't know about his cooking lessons. Well, that's proof of the fact that he did himself a huge favor not telling pretty much anybody that he's attending cooking classes, because of course Fukurodani's ace going to cooking school is an incredibly amusing thing to imagine for those who know him.

"Yes, not my choice, my mother forced me. But let me tell my story, ok? No interruptions" the boy replies, and Kenma nods in silence while he keeps playing; both Kuroo and Akaashi seem to be pretty amused by the direction he's taking, probably imagining how many other times Bokuto will appear embarrassed while telling a story he himself defined as _super cool_.

"As I was saying, I met this woman, who is actually part of a group of nice but also nosy old ladies, and at first I thought that they were trying to get me to ask Kumiko-chan out, because they were really happy when we finally got together" he explains.

"So that's how you met Nasaki..." Kenma comments in a low voice, but Bokuto ignores him and keeps going.

"Then I started having a gay crisis, and I didn't know if I was supposed to talk about it to someone. And just at the same time, that old lady starts telling me all about her grandson's gay crisis. And I was like wow, that's definitely a sign! So after a while I told her about my doubts, and she decided that I needed to go out with her grandson. But when I got to the place of our first date I saw this guy here and I bolted" Bokuto keeps explaining, using a thumb to point at his boyfriend when he mentions him.

Both Akaashi and Kenma, at this point, seem to be pretty interested in listening to how the story continues. "I was too embarrassed to say that I ran away, so I just came up with a lie and we rescheduled. But the next time he saw me and bolted" he's now chuckling while he keeps going with his tale. "Third time's a charm though, so we managed to meet, but when I saw _who_ I was meeting I almost died on the spot. Because, you know, I kinda liked him so it was a total shock to realize that maybe I could have a shot with him. After that we remained friends, but it was weird, because we knew that we were both gay, which made us wonder if being together could be an option, and we secretly liked each other, so his grandmother suggested us to try dating again, but this time for real, and we did. And that's it, he was adorable and I had to kiss him" Bokuto concludes, a wide smile on his face.

There's silence after he finishes talking, because both Kenma and Akaashi are probably thinking about what they just heard. "So many things make sense now" Akaashi comments after a while. "I never took grandma Hanako for the matchmaking type" is Kenma's comment immediately after.

Fukurodani's captain just nods vigorously, turning to look at his boyfriend for support, and he finds Kuroo a little red in the face, but at the same time he's grinning. "I'm glad you like telling this story, because I really don't" Nekoma's captain states, ruffling his boyfriend's hair. "Your story is all about nice old ladies and revelations. Mine is just my grandmother blabbering all of my secrets to a total stranger, and then trying to give me a heart attack by setting me up on a blind date with the friend I've had a crush on for two years. Not as charming, uh?" he continues, a smirk on his face, even though he's still blushing at least a little.

Bokuto leans towards him and kisses his cheek. "Come on, your grandmother is adorable" the boy states, making Kuroo roll his eyes.

"No, she really isn’t. She's incapable of minding her own business and she talks too much" the middle blocker protests. A moment later, they're bickering like an old married couple, something that they absolutely used to do when they were just friends. This time, however, their banter is interrupted every now and then by the two of them exchanging a quick kiss before going back to mocking and shoving each other.

To be honest, it doesn't take long before Bokuto completely forgets that there are two other people at the table with them. He only remembers of their presence when he hears them speak. "What a couple they are..." Akaashi comments with a chuckle.

Beside him, Kenma snorts. "Just ignore them, at some point they'll fade into background noise, I suppose" Nekoma's setter suggests, without taking his eyes off his videogame.

"Hey! I heard that!" Bokuto protests, fake-offended. At his reaction, Kuroo just wraps both arms around him and laughs.

Everything feels so normal, and Bokuto really couldn’t be happier for having decided to come out to those two friends.

***

Things are easier for them, now that at least their best friends know that they’re together. They still haven't decided what to do regarding the rest of their friends, though. They agree, however, that they'll tell everybody that they're a couple when the right moment comes along. They don't need to plan it, they'll just know that it's the right thing to do when they’ll get there.

The next time they meet in front of people is at Nationals, and they manage not to get weird or clumsy around each other. In fact, they manage to keep up with their usual exchanges, and nobody suspects that there might be something between them. Whenever possible, they watch each other's games, each of them wishing his boyfriend the best. When Nekoma loses against Karasuno, something that honestly Bokuto would have never imagined in a million years, they give each other a friendly hug on the court.

Only later that evening, when Bokuto is feeling better after defeating Kiryuu and advancing to the semifinals, he goes looking for his boyfriend in order to properly comfort him. That’s also when most of the Nekoma team starts suspecting that there might be something between the two of them. After all, what other reason might Bokuto have to sneak into Nekoma’s hotel and cuddle with Kuroo? Bokuto is pretty sure that Kuroo will have to talk to his team after those moments together.

Then the last day arrives, and Fukurodani plays in the finals. Their opponent is Ichibayashi high school, a team that Bokuto honestly doesn't know much about. After all, he always thought that he was going to play against either Itachiyama or Inarizaki in the finals, and seeing those teams not even making it to the semifinals left him pretty startled. When the game starts, however, Fukurodani's ace is entirely focused on what's going on inside the court. He doesn't think about his boyfriend watching him from the stands, he doesn't think about what he's going to do after winning. All he thinks about is playing to win, because there is no game they can afford to lose.

Knowing that he's lucky enough to have Kuroo all for himself is what made him feel more confident than ever during the quarterfinals match against Kiryuu, probably making him a better ace from that moment on. The same sense of self-worth keeps accompanying him when he sets foot on the court for the last time in his high school career. He's confident, he's sure, he's strong. But on the fifth set, when their opponents are at their match point, he fails. His team believes in him, in his ability to bring them to victory, but he fails them all. His spike gets stuffed, and just like that they lose the game.

Even though he tries to keep a smile on his face for his friends, Bokuto is slowly dying inside. They lost, and it's all his fault. His teammates try to comfort him the best they can, and he plays the part of the good captain, thanking them for what they were able to share during those years spent playing on the same side of the net, but the truth is that he just wants to cry. The fact that he's not getting dejected over stupid crap during matches, after all, doesn't mean that he lost his right to be sad when sadness is needed.

After the awards ceremony, the entire Fukurodani team leaves the court together. All of the third-years are repeatedly slapping their hands on Bokuto's back, in their own way of comforting him. They all have nice words for him, even Konoha, which alone is enough to leave their captain even more unsettled. Since when are they so openly nice with him, complimenting him for real instead of just telling him what he wants to hear? Those reactions definitely don't make him feel any better.

The moment they reach the hallway outside the court area, the first thing he can see is Kuroo, dressed in his Nekoma tracksuit, leaning against a wall with his arms folded on his chest. His boyfriend is looking right at him, giving him a hint of a smile that manages to convey how sorry he is for what happened.

"Hey" the other boy greets him, taking a couple of steps to distance himself from the wall, and Bokuto just gives in.

"Tetsu!" he cries, and wriggling out of the way of his teammates' comforting touches he runs towards his boyfriend, throwing himself at him with desperation.

Immediately, Kuroo engulfs him in his arms, slowly rocking him while caressing the length of his back. "I'm so sorry Bo" he whispers, making Bokuto crack completely.

"It's all my fault..." Fukurodani's captain barely manages to say, while he starts sobbing against his boyfriend's neck. Kuroo's sweet attentions don't make him feel any better; they actually make him feel more vulnerable, more in need to cry.

That's when Kuroo brings both hands to his face, positioning Bokuto's head so that the two of them can look into each other's eyes. "Drill it into that thick head of yours: it's not your fault you lost, okay? Look at your teammates: it doesn’t seem like they’re blaming you either, don’t you think?" Kuroo says, his voice low and somehow soothing. The wing spiker sniffles a little, but he doesn't say anything, and he doesn't stop crying either. For a moment, he imagines his boyfriend telling him that he looks pathetic, that Kuroo doesn't want to date a loser. That's why what follows manages to surprise him even more.

Nekoma's captain starts rubbing both thumbs against his cheekbones, swiping away the tears. "Even if you lost, you're still the greatest of champions. This wasn’t your moment to shine, but your time will come, and one day everyone will see what I already know: that you really are the best. I love you, Bo" Kuroo states, his voice barely loud enough for the entire Fukurodani team to hear him, since they're all just standing _right there_.

Those words make Bokuto's heart almost explode with happiness. Even though he's a loser, his boyfriend still loves him. That's actually the first time Kuroo told him, therefore Fukurodani's ace doesn't even realize at first that his boyfriend just proclaimed his love in front of the entire team. He's too taken by the butterflies in his stomach, and that sensation of being on top of the world that makes his skin tingle. It's similar to what he felt the first time they kissed, but way more intense, strong enough to make him feel invincible even after suffering such a pitiful defeat.

A huge smile widens on his face, and he even blushes a little under the intense stare of Kuroo's eyes. "Thank you, Tetsu, I can’t imagine what I would do without you. I love you too" he breathes out. He barely has the time to see Kuroo have his same reaction, smiling and blushing, before he gives into the urge to lean forward and capture Kuroo's lips with his own. They kiss slowly but passionately, forgetting all about the rest of Fukurodani, still there looking at them.

Their kiss, however, causes a few different reactions. Starting with Yuki and Kaori, both squealing that they look super cute together. Apparently, the two girls have just become the number one fans of the two of them as a couple.

"I definitely wasn't expecting _that_ to happen" is Washio's comment. The boy sounds as if someone has just smacked him in the face.

"I totally was. It was just a matter of time, actually. I could see the tension between them with my naked eyes" is Sarukui's smug reply.

"That's right, Saru: normal friends don’t touch each other _that much_. You lost the bet, Konoha, you owe us dinner now!" Komi adds in a playful yet conspiratorial tone.

"Tsk. Get a room, you two!" Konoha states with a fake-irritated voice, acting as if that scene is disturbing him when it actually isn’t.

Then there's the sound of a slap connecting with a strong muscled body, followed by Konoha's "Akaashi, what the hell?" That’s a sign that Akaashi hasn’t appreciated Konoha’s comment about them, making Bokuto feel incredibly warm inside.

When Bokuto and Kuroo separate and turn to face their friends, they find Akaashi with both hands on his hips, giving scolding eyes to the rest of the Fukurodani volleyball team. All of Bokuto's other teammates, however, are looking in their direction, and Akaashi turns towards them as well the moment he realizes that he can stop trying to make the other boys behave. Akaashi is smiling at the two of them now.

Bokuto is filled with happiness at the sight in front of his eyes. Even though his teammates are making fun of him, they’re not doing it with malice or any kind of bad intentions, meaning that his friends have accepted him completely. And that’s when realization hits him. Sure, soon they're going to go their separate ways, but they're never actually going to lose each other.

With the support of his boyfriend, his best friend and all of his teammates, Bokuto Koutarou feels ready to leave home after high school to become the greatest volleyball player of all times. Somehow, he knows that he has everything he needs in order to survive on his own, because after all he'll never really be alone.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe the last chapter is actually over!!  
> I hope you all have enjoyed these 21 chapters. I'm writing more in this verse, including the story of how these two got together from Kuroo's pov (which, as Kuroo said himself, is not as charming as Bokuto's version... ~~it includes two years of internalized homophobia after all~~ ) and a few "what if" situations that came to my mind while following the main plot, such as "what would have happened if Bokuto hadn't fled when he saw Kuroo on their first date" and stuff like that. But I'm honest in saying that I'm not sure if any of this will ever see the light of day. I have several more projects I'm working on, and I would like to prioritize those instead of something that is only adding information to a story that has already been told.
> 
> Anyway, I'm always glad to hear what you think about the end, and the story as a whole. And if you want to talk Bokuroo with other people who love these two idiots as much as you do, you can join the Bokuroo Discord server by clicking [here!!](https://discord.gg/MG3nubB)


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